SCIENCE 


OF 


SOCIETY. 


STEPHEN  PEARL  ANDREWS. 


rr4. 


Who  loves  not 
Knowledge  ^^^ 

W^ho  shall  rail 
against  her  beauty 

May  she  mix 
with  men  and  i^ 
prosper  f^ms^s^ism 


TTT 


\  V.  V  J^. 


THE  SCIENCE  OE  SOCIETY. 

No.   1. 


The  Trhe  Constitution  of  KoyERNiENT 


SOVEEEIGNTY  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 


fi:n^al  development  of  protestantism, 
democracy  an^d  socialism. 


BY 

STEPHEN  PEARL  ANDREWS. 


BOSTON,  MASS. : 
SARAH  E.    HOLMES,  Publisher. 

1888. 


EXPLANATORY. 


This  book  was  first  printed  nearly  forty  years  ago.  Its  seed,  for  the  most  part,  fell  upon 
stony  ground.  In  consequence  of  this  cold  reception,  this  lack  of  demand,  the  work  passed 
through  but  a  few  small  editions  and  then  disappeared  from  the  market.  The  author's  keen, 
broad,  and  untiring  mind  leading  him  into  new  fields  of  thought,  he  never  reprinted  it. 
Thus,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  it  has  been  practically  out  of  sight,  out  of  mind. 

Nevertheless  its  work  has  never  stopped.  Here  and  there  the  seed  did  fall  upon  oases, 
and  in  fertile  spots  it  always  took  deep  root  and  reproduced  its  kind.  Its  children  and 
grand-children  and  great-graud-children  have  seldom  been  conscious  of  their  ancestry,  but 
today  the  family  is  so  numerous  that  the  branches  of  its  genealogical  tree  pervade  with  a 
growing,  and  often  a  controlling,  influence  every  department  of  what  Mr.  Andrews  happily 
calls  "Man's  social  habitat."  It  can  be  only  helpful  to  this  family  to  be  made  acquainted 
with  its  origin,  especially  when  the  power  of  the  printing-press  enables  it  to  revive  and 
freshly  scatter  the  parent-seed  upon  a  more  receptive  soil. 

Such  is  the  purpose  of  this  new  edition  of  "The  Science  of  Society."  The  social  problem 
is  pressing  more  closely  upon  our  heels  than  it  was  in  1851,  and  a  book  expounding  as  lucidly 
as  this  the  basic  principles  in  which  alone  its  solution  is  to  be  found  is  greatly  needed.  The 
author  himself,  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life,  earnestly  desired  its  republication,  and  the 
publisher  takes  pleasure  in  the  thought  that  the  enterprise  would  meet  his  approbation. 
And  not  only  his,  but  that  of  Josiah  Warren  as  well,  who  was  never  tired  of  praising  Mr. 
Andrews's  work  as  in  his  opinion  the  soundest  exposition  that  ever  had  been  made  or  ever 
could  be  made  of  the  two  principles  which  he  (Mr.  Warren)  had  introduced  to  the  world  in 
his  less  pretentious  work,  "  True  Civilization." 

But  even  if  this  double  incentive  of  satisfying  a  public  demand  and  honoring  a  master's 
memory  were  altogether  lacking,  the  publisher  might  still  find  abundant  justification  and 
encouragement  in  Robert  Browning's  lines : 

To  shoot  a  beam  into  the  dark,  assists  : 
To  make  that  beam  do  fuller  service,  spread 
And  utilize  such  bounty  to  tlio  height. 
That  assists  also,  —  and  that  work  is  mine. 

March,  1888. 


IKTBODUCTION. 


This  little  treatise  on  the  True  Constitution  of  Government  was  delivered  as  one  of  the 
regular  course  of  lectures  before  the  New  York  Mechanics'  Institute  for  the  present  winter. 
It  is  now  published  as  the  introductory  number  of  a  contemplated  series  of  publications,  pre- 
senting certain  new  principles  of  society,  which  it  is  the  belief  of  the  author  are  eminently 
adapted  to  supply  the  felt  want  of  the  present  day  for  an  adequate  solution  of  the  existing 
social  disturbances.  For  the  principles  in  question,  either  as  original  discoveries,  or  else  as 
presented  in  a  new  light,  as  solvents  of  the  knotty  questions  which  are  now  puzzling  the 
most  capacious  minds  and  aflBicting  the  most  benevolent  hearts  of  Christendom,  the  author 
confesses  his  very  great  indebtedness,  and  he  believes  the  world  will  yet  gladly  confess  its 
indebtedness,  to  the  genius  of  Josiah  Warren,  of  Indiana,  who  has  been  engaged  for  more 
than  twenty  years  in  testing,  almost  in  solitude,  the  practical  operation,  in  the  education  of 
children,  in  the  sphere  of  commerce,  and  otherwise,  of  the  principles  which  we  are  now  for 
the  first  time  presenting  prominently  to  the  public. 

It  has  been  the  belief  of  the  author  that  there  are  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  are  denomi- 
nated Conservatives  many  who  sympathize  deeply  with  the  objects  of  radical  reform,  but 
who  have  never  identified  themselves  with  the  movements  in  that  direction,  either  because 
they  have  not  seen  that  the  practical  measures  proposed  by  the  advocates  of  reform  con- 
tained the  elements  of  success,  or  else  because  they  have  distinctly  perceived  or  intuitively 
felt  that  they  did  not.  They  may  have  been  repelled,  too,  by  the  want  of  completeness  in 
the  programme,  the  want  of  scientific  exactness  in  the  principles  announced,  or,  finally,  by 
the  want  of  a  lucid  conception  of  the  real  nature  of  the  remedy  which  is  needed  for  the  mani- 
fold social  evils  of  which  all  confess  the  existence  in  the  actual  condition  of  society.  If  there 
are  minds  in  this  position,  minds  more  rigid  than  others  in  their  demands  for  precise  and 
philosophical  principles  preliminary  to  action,  it  is  from  such  that  the  author  anticipates  the 
most  cordial  reception  of  the  elements  propounded  by  Mr.  Warren,  so  soon  as  they  are  seen 
in  their  connections  and  interrelations  with  each  other. 

Believing  that  these  principles  will  justify  the  assumption,  I  have  ventured  to  place  at  the 
head  of  this  series  of  publications,  as  a  general  title,  "  The  Science  of  Society." 

The  propriety  of  the  use  of  the  term  "  Science  "  in  such  a  connection  may  be  questioned  by 
some  whom  habit  has  accustomed  to  apply  that  term  to  a  much  lower  range  of  investiga- 
tions.   If  researches  into  the  habits  of  beetles  and  tadpoles,  and  their  localities  and  conditions 


6  Introduction. 

of  existence,  are  entitled  to  the  dignified  appellation  of  Science,  certainly  similar  researches 
into  the  nature,  the  wants,  the  adaptations,  and,  so  to  speak,  into  the  true  or  requisite  moral 
and  social  habitat  of  the  spiritual  animal  called  Man  must  be,  if  conducted  according  to  the 
rigid  methods  of  scientific  induction  from  observed  facts,  equally  entitled  to  that  distinction. 
The  series  of  works,  of  which  this  is  the  first  in  order,  will  deal  in  no  vague  aspirations 
after  "the  good  time  coming."  They  will  j^ropound  definite  principles  which  demand  to  be 
regarded  as  having  all  the  validity  of  scientific  truths,  and  which,  taken  in  their  co-relations 
with  each  other,  are  adequate  to  the  solution  of  the  social  problem.  If  this  pretension  be 
made  good,  the  importance  of  the  subject  will  not  be  denied.  If  not  well  founded,  the  defi- 
niteness  of  the  propositions  will  be  favorable  to  a  speedy  and  successful  refutation. 

S.  p.  A. 

New  York,  January,  1851. 


The  Ti-uG  Constitution  of  Government. 


THE     TRUE     CONSTITUTION     OF     GOVERNMENT. 

A  LECTURE. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

The  subject  which  I  propose  to  consider  this  evening  is  the  true  constitution  of 
human  government. 

Every  age  is  a  remarkable  one,  no  doubt,  for  those  who  live  in  it.  When  immo- 
bility reigns  most  in  human  affairs,  there  is  still  enough  of  movement  to  fix  the 
attention,  and  even  to  excite  the  wonder  of  those  who  are  immediately  in  proxim- 
ity with  it.  This  natural  bias  in  favor  of  the  period  with  which  we  have  most  to 
do  is  by  no  means  sufficient,  however,  to  accoimt  for  the  growing  conviction,  on 
aU  minds,  that  the  present  epoch  is  a  marked  transition  from  an  old  to  a  new 
order  of  things.  The  scattered  rays  of  the  gray  dawn  of  the  new  era  date  back, 
indeed,  beyond  the  lifetime  of  the  present  generation.  The  first  streak  of  light 
that  streamed  through  the  dense  darkness  of  the  old  regime  was  the  declaration  by 
Martin  Luther  of  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  conscience."  The 
next,  which  shed  terror  upon  the  old  world,  as  a  new  portent  of  impending  revolu- 
tions, was  the  denial  by  Hampden,  Sidney,  Cromwell,  and  others  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings,  and  the  assertion  of  inherent  political  rights  in  the  people  them- 
selves. This  was  foUowed  by  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  powerful  Democratic  Eepublic  in  the  western  world  upon  the 
basis  of  that  principle,  followed  by  the  French  Revolution,  the  Reign  of  Terror, 
the  Reaction,  and  the  apparent  death  in  Europe  of  the  Democratic  idea.  Finally, 
in  our  day,  comes  the  red  glare  of  French  Socialism,  at  which  the  world  is  stiU 
gazing  with  uncertainty  whether  it  be  some  lurid  and  meteoric  omen  of  fearful 
events,  or  whether  it  be  not  the  actual  rising  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  with 
healing  in  His  wings;  for  there  are  those  who  profoundly  and  religiously  believe 
that  the  solution  of  the  social  problem  will  be  the  virtual  descent  of  the  New  Jeru- 
salem,— the  installation  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth. 

First  in  the  religious,  then  in  the  political,  and  finally  in  the  social  relations  of 
men  new  doctrines  have  thus  been  broached,  which  are  full  of  promise  to  the  hope- 


8  The  Science  of  Society. 

ful,  and  full  of  alarm  and  dismay  to  the  timid  and  conservative.  This  distinction 
marks  the  broadest  division  in  the  ranks  of  mankind.  In  Church  and  State  and 
social  life  the  real  parties  are  the- Progressionists  and  the  Retrogres&ionists, — those 
■whose  most  brilliant  imaginings  are  linked  -with  the  future,  and  those  whose  sweet- 
est remembrances  bind  them  in  tender  associations  to  the  past.  Catholic  and  Pro- 
testant, Wliig  and  Democrat,  Anti-Socialist  and  Socialist,  are  terms  which,  in  their 
origin,  correspond  to  this  generic  division;  but  no  sooner  does  a  new  classification 
take  place  than  the  parties  thus  formed  are  again  subdivided,  on  either  hand,  by 
the  ever-permeating  tendency,  on  the  one  side  toward  freedom,  emancipation,  and 
progress,  and  toward  law  and  order  and  immobility  on  the  other. 

Hitherto  the  struggle  between  conservatism  and  progress  has  seemed  doubtful. 
Victory  has  kissed  the  banner,  alternately,  of  either  host.  At  length  the  serried 
ranks  of  conservatism  falter.  Reform,  so  called,  is  becoming  confessedly  more  po- 
tent than  its  antagonist.  The  admission  is  reluctantly  forced  from  pallid  lips  that 
revolutions — political,  social,  and  religious  —  constitute  the  programme  of  the  com- 
ing age.  Reform,  so  called,  for  weal  or  woe,  but  yet  Reform,  must  rule  the  hour. 
The  older  constitutions  of  society  have  outlived  their  day.  No  truth  commends 
itself  more  universally  to  the  minds  of  men  now  than  that  thus  set  forth  by  Car- 
lyle :  "  There  must  be  a  new  world,  if  there  is  tu  be  any  world  at  all.  That  human 
things  in  our  Europe  can  ever  return  to  the  old  sorry  routine,  and  proceed  with 
any  steadiness  or  continuance  there,  —  this  small  hope  is  not  now  a  tenable  one. 
These  days  of  universal  death  must  be  days  of  universal  new  birth,  if  the  nun  is 
not  to  be  total  and  final  1  It  is  a  time  to  make  the  dullest  man  consider,  and  ask 
himself,  Whence  he  came?  Whither  he  is  bound?  A  veritable  'New  Era,'  to  the 
foolish  as  well  as  to  the  wise."  Nor  is  this  state  of  things  confined  to  Europe. 
The  agitations  in  America  may  be  more  peaceful,  but  they  are  not  less  profound. 
The  foundations  of  old  beliefs  and  habits  of  thought  are  breaking  up.  The  old 
guarantees  of  order  are  fast  falling  away.  A  veritable  "new  era"  with  us,  too,  is 
alike  impending  and  inevitable. 

AVhat  remains  to  be  done,  then,  for  wise  men,  is  clearly  this:  to  attempt  to  pen- 
etrate the  future  by  investigating  the  past  and  the  present,  to  ascertain  whether 
there  be  not  elements  of  calculation  capable  of  fixing  with  tolerable  certainty  the 
precise  point  in  the  sidereal  heavens  of  human  destiny  toward  which  our  whole 
system  is  confessedly  verging  with  accelerated  velocity.  To  penetrate  the  gloom 
which  encircles  the  orbit  of  our  future  progression  might,  at  least,  end  the  torture 
of  suspense,  even  to  those  who  may  be  least  content  with  the  nature  of  the  solution. 
"If,"  says  Carlyle  again,  "the  accursed  nightmare  that  is  crushing  out  the  life  of 
us  and  ours  would  take  a  shape,  approach  us  like  the  Hyrcanian  tiger,  the  Behemoth 
of  Caos,  or  the  Archfiend  himself,  —  in  any  shape  that  we  could  see  and  fasten  on, — 
a  man  can  have  himself  shot  with  cheerfulness,  but  it  needs  that  he  shall  clearly  see 
for  what." 


The  Tnie   Constitution  of  Gcyoemment.  9 

It  is,  then,  neither  unbecoming  nor  inappropriate,  at  this  time,  to  attempt  to  prog- 
nosticate, by  philosophical  deductions  from  operative  principles  the  chracteristics 
of  the  new  society  which  is  to  be  constructed  out  of  the  fragments  of  the  old.  It 
is,  perhaps,  only  right  that  I  should  begin  by  declaring  the  general  nature  of  the  re- 
sults to  which  my  own  mind  is  conducted  by  the  speculations  I  have  made  upon  the 
subject,  and  toward  which  I  shall,  so  far  as  I  may,  endeavor,  this  evening,  to  sway 
your  convictions. 

I  avow  that,  for  one,  I  take  the  hopeful,  the  expectant,  even  the  exulting  view  of 
the  prospects  of  humanity,  under  the  influence  of  causes  which,  to  the  minds  of 
many,  are  pregnant  with  evil.  I  hail  the  progress  of  that  unsparing  criticism  of  old 
institutions  which  is  the  characteristic  of  the  present  age.  I  hail  with  still  higher 
enthusiasm  a  dim  outline  which  begins  to  be  perceived  by  the  keenest  vision,  through 
the  twilight  mists  which  yet  hang  upon  the  surrounding  hilltops  of  a  social  fabric, 
whose  foundations  are  equity,  whose  ceiling  is  security,  whose  pillars  are  coopera- 
tion and  fraternity,  and  whose  capitals  and  cornices  are  carved  into  the  graceful 
forms  of  mutual  urbanity  and  politeness.  It  is  just  to  you  that  I  should  announce 
this  faith,  that  you  may  receive  the  vaticinations  of  the  prophet  with  due  allowance 
for  the  inebriation  of  the  prophetic  rhapsody.  I  proclaim  myself  in  some  sense  a 
visionary ;  but  in  all  ages  there  have  been  visionaries  whose  visions  of  today  have 
proved  the  substantial  realities  of  tomorrow. 

I  shall  make  no  apology  for  the  rashness  of  the  attempt  to  trace,  with  a  distinct 
outline,  some  of  the  gigantic  changes  which  will  occur  in  the  social  organization  of 
the  world  as  the  necessary  outgrowth  of  principles  now  at  work,  and  which  are  be- 
coming every  day  more  potential,  in  proportion  as  forces,  which  have  hitherto  been 
deemed  antagonistic,  converge  and  cooperate. 

I  affirm,  then,  firstly,  that  there  is  at  this  day  a  marked  convergence  and  a  pro- 
spective cooperation  of  principles  which  have  hitherto  resisted  each  other,  or,  more 
properly,  a  development  of  one  common  principle  in  spheres  of  life  so  diverse  from 
each  other  that  they  have  hitherto  been  regarded  as  unrelated,  if  not  positively  an- 
tagonistic. I  assert,  and  shall  endeavor  to  make  good  the  assertion,  that  the  essen- 
tial spirit,  the  vital  and  fundamental  principle  of  the  three  great  modern  movements 
to  which  I  have  already  alluded, — namely,  the  Protestant  Reformation,  the  Dem- 
ocratic Revolution,  still  progressing,  and,  finally,  the  Socialist  Agitation,  which  is 
spreading  in  multiform  varieties  of  reproduction  over  the  whole  civilized  world, — 
is  one  and  the  same,  and  that  this  common  affinity  is  beginning  in  various  ways  to 
be  recognized  or  felt.  If  this  assertion  be  true,  it  is  one  of  immense  significance. 
If  Protestantism,  Democracy,  and  Socialism  are  merely  different  expressions  of  the 
same  idea,  then,  undoubtedly,  the  confluent  force  of  these  three  movements  will 
expand  tremendously  the  sweep  of  their  results,  in  the  direction  toward  which  they 
collectively  tend. 

What,  then,  if  this  be  so,  is  this  common  element?    In  what  great  feature  are 


10  The  Science  of  Society. 

Protestantism,  Democi'acy,  and  Socialism  identical?  I  will  answei-  this  interroga* 
tory  first,  and  demonstrate  the  answer  afterward.  Protestantism,  Democracy,  and 
Socialism  are  identical  in  the  assertion  of  the  Supremacy  of  the  Individual, — a 
dogma  essentially  contumacious,  revolutionary,  and  antagonistic  to  the  basis  prin- 
ciples of  all  the  older  institutions  of  society,  which  make  the  Individual  subordinate 
and  subject  to  the  Church,  to  the  State,  and  to  Society  respectively.  Not  only  is 
this  supremacy  or  sovereignty  of  the  individual  a  common  element  of  all  three 
of  these  great  modern  movements,  but  I  will  make  the  still  more  sweeping  assertion 
that  it  is  substantially  the  whole  of  those  movements.  It  is  not  merely  a  feature, 
as  I  have  just  denominated  it,  but  the  living  soul  itself,  the  vital  energy,  the  integral 
essence  or  being  of  them  all. 

Protestants  and  Protestant  churches  may  differ  in  relation  to  every  other  article 
of  their  creed,  and  do  so  differ,  without  ceasing  to  be  Protestants,  so  long  as  they 
assert  the  paramount  right  of  private  or  individual  judgment  in  matters  of  con- 
science. It  is  that,  and  that  only,  which  makes  them  Protestants,  and  distinguishes 
them  from  the  Catholic  world,  which  asserts,  on  the  contrary,  the  supreme  author- 
ity of  the  church,  of  the  priesthood,  or  of  some  dignitary  or  institution  other  than 
the  Individual  whose  judgment  and  whose  conscience  is  in  question.  In  like  man- 
ner, Democrats  and  Democratic  governments  and  institutions  may  differ  from  each 
other,  and  may  vary  infinitely  at  different  periods  of  time,  and  still  remain  Dem- 
ocratic, so  long  as  they  maintain  the  one  essential  principle  and  condition  of  Dem- 
ocracy,— namely,  that  all  governmental  powers  reside  in,  are  only  delegated  by, 
and  can  be,  at  any  moment,  resumed  by  the  people,  —  that  is,  by  the  individuals, 
who  are  first  Individuals,  and  who  then,  by  virtue  only  of  the  act  of  delegating 
such  powers,  become  a  people,  —  that  is,  a  combined  mass  of  Individuals.  It  is  this 
dogma,  and  this  alone,  which  makes  the  Democrat,  and  which  distinguishes  him 
from  the  Despotist,  or  the  defender  of  the  divine  right  of  kings. 

Again,  Socialism  assumes  every  shade  and  variety  of  opinion  respecting  the 
modes  of  realizing  its  own  aspirations,  and,  indeed,  upon  every  other  point,  except 
one,  which,  when  investigated,  will  be  found  to  be  the  paramount  rights  of  the  In- 
dividual over  social  institutions,  and  the  consequent  demand  that  all  existing  so- 
cial institutions  shall  be  so  modified  that  the  Individual  shall  be  in  no  manner 
subjected  to  them.  This,  then,  is  the  identical  principle  of  Protestantism  and 
Democracy  carried  into  its  application  in  another  sphere.  The  celebrated  formula 
of  Fourier  that  "  destinies  are  proportioned  to  attractions,"  means,  when  translated 
into  less  technical  phraseology,  that  society  must  be  so  reorganized  that  every  In- 
dividual shall  be  empowered  to  choose  and  vary  his  own  destiny  or  condition  and 
pursuits  in  life,  untrammeled  by  social  restrictions ;  in  other  words,  so  that  every 
man  may  be  a  law  unto  himself,  paramount  to  all  other  human  laws,  and  the  sole 
judge  for  himself  of  the  divine  law  and  of  the  requisitions  of  his  own  individual 
nature  and  organization.     This  is  equally  the  fundamental  principle  of  all  the  so- 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  11 

cial  theories,  except  in  the  case  of  the  Shakers,  the  Rappites,  etc.,  which  are  based 
upon  religious  whims,  demanding  submission,  as  a  matter  of  duty,  to  a  despotic 
rule,  and  which  embody,  in  another  form,  the  readoption  of  the  popish  or  conserva- 
tive principle.  They,  therefore,  while  they  live  in  a  form  of  society  similar  in  some 
respects  to  those  which  have  been  proposed  by  the  various  schools  of  Socialists,  are, 
in  fact,  neither  Protestants  nor  Democrats,  and,  consequently,  not  Socialists  in  the 
sense  in  which  I  am  now  defining  Socialism.  The  forms  of  society  proposed  by  So- 
cialism are  the  mere  shell  of  the  doctrine, — means  to  the  end, — a  platform  upon 
which  to  place  the  Individual,  in  order  that  he  may  be  enabled  freely  to  exercise 
his  own  Individuality,  which  is  the  end  and  aim  of  all.  We  have  seen  that  the 
shell  is  one  which  man  ^'^  inhabited  by  despotism.  Possibly  it  is  uiifit  for  the  habita- 
tion of  any  thing  else  than  despotism,  which  the  Socialist  hopes,  by  ensconcing  him- 
self therein,  to  escape.  It  is  possible,  even,  that  Socialism  may  have  mistaken  its 
measures  altogether,  and  that  the  whole  system  of  Association  and  combined  inter- 
ests and  combined  responsibilities  proposed  by  it  may  be  essentially  antagonistic  to 
the  very  ends  proposed.  AU  this,  however,  if  it  be  so,  is  merely  incidental.  It  be- 
longs to  the  shell,  and  not  to  the  substance, — to  the  means,  and  not  to  the  end. 
The  whole  programme  of  Socialism  may  yet  be  abandoned  or  reversed,  and  yet  So- 
cialism remain  in  substance  the  same  thing.  What  Socialism  demands  is  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  Individual  from  social  bondage,  by  whatsoever  means  will  effect 
that  design,  in  the  same  manner  as  Protestantism  demands  the  emancipation  of 
the  Individual  from  ecclesiastical  bondage,  and  Democracy  from  political.  Who- 
soever makes  that  demand,  or  labors  to  that  end,  is  a  Socialist.  Any  particular 
views  he  may  entertain,  distinguishing  him  from  other  Socialists,  regarding  prac- 
tical measures,  or  the  ultimate  forms  of  society,  are  the  mere  specific  differences, 
like  those  which  divide  the  Protestant  sects  of  Christendom. 

This  definition  of  Socialism  may  surprise  some  into  the  discovery  of  the  fact  that 
they  have  been  Socialists  all  along,  unawares.  Some,  on  the  other  hand,  who  have 
called  themselves  Socialists  may  not  at  once  be  inclined  to  accept  the  definition. 
They  may  not  perceive  clearly  that  ir  is  the  emancipation  of  the  Individual  for 
which  they  are  laboring,  and  afiirm  that  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  freedom  and 
happiness  of  the  race.  They  will  not  however,  deny  that  it  is  both ;  and  a  very 
little  reflection  will  show  that  the  freedom  and  happiness  of  each  individual  will 
he  the  freedom  and  happiness  of  the  race,  and  that  the  freedom  and  happiness  of 
the  race  can  not  exist  so  long  as  there  is  any  individual  of  the  race  who  is  not  happy 
and  free.  So  the  Protestant  and  the  Democrat  may  not  always  have  a  clear  intel- 
lectual perception  of  the  distinctive  principle  of  their  creeds.  He  may  be  attached 
to  it  from  an  instinctive  sentiment,  which  lie  has  never  thoroughly  analyzed,  or  even 
from  the  mere  accidents  of  education  and  birth. 

Protestantism  proclaims  that  the  individual  has  an  inalienable  right  to  judge  for 
himself  in  all  matters  of  conscience.     Democracy  proclaims  that  the  Individual 


12  The  Science  of  Society. 

has  an  inalienable  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Socialism 
proclaims  that  the  Individual  has  an  inalienable  right  to  that  social  position  which 
his  powers  and  natural  organization  qualify  him,  and  which  his  tastes  incline  him 
to  fill,  and,  consequently,  to  that  constitution  or  arrangement  of  the  property  re- 
lations, and  other  relations  of  society,  whatsoever  that  may  be,  which  'will  enable 
him  to  enjoy  and  exercise  that  right, — the  adaptation  of  social  conditions  to  the 
wants  of  each  Individual,  with  all  his  peculiarities  and  fluctuations  of  taste,  instead 
of  the  moulding  of  the  Individual  into  conformity  with  the  rigid  requirements  of 
a  preconcerted  social  organization. 

If  this  be  a  correct  statement  of  the  essential  nature  of  Protestantism,  Democracy, 
and  Socialism,  then  Protestantism,  Democracy,  and  Socialism  are  not  actuated  by 
three  distinct  principles  at  all.  They  are  simply  three  partial  announcements  of 
one  generic  principle,  which  lies  beneath  all  these  movements,  and  of  which  they 
are  the  legitimate  outgTowths  or  developments,  modified  only  by  the  fact  of  a  dif- 
ferent application  of  the  same  principle.  This  great  generic  principle,  which  under- 
lies every  manifestation  of  that  universal  unrest  and  revolution  which  is  known 
technically  in  this  age  as  "  Progress,"  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  "  The  Sover- 
EiGXTY  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL."  It  is  that  which  is  the  central  idea  and  vital  prin- 
ciple of  Protestantism;  it  is  that  which  is  the  central  idea  and  vital  principle  of 
Democracy ;  and  it  is  that  which  is  the  central  idea  and  vital  principle  of  Socialism. 

This  being  so,  it  is  high  time  that  the  mutual  afl^ity  of  these  movements  should 
be  intelligently  perceived  and  recognized  both  by  the  friends  and  the  enemies  of 
the  movements  themselves.  It  is  high  time  that  the  scene  of  the  battle-field  should 
be  shifted  from  the  right  or  wrong  of  any  or  all  of  the  partial  developments  of  the 
principle  to  the  essential  right  or  wrong  of  the  principle  itself.  The  true  issue  is 
not  whether  Protestantism  be  good  or  evil,  whether  Democracy  be  good  or  evU, 
nor  whether  Socialism  be  good  or  evil,  but  whether  the  naked,  bald,  unlimited 
principle  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  in  human  government  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  human  aifairs,  be  essentially  good  and  true  or  essentially  pernicious 
and  false.  This  is  the  issue  now  up  for  trial  before  the  world,  and  the  definitive  de- 
cision of  which  must  be  had  before  the  final  destiny  of  mankind  upon  earth  can  be 
even  rough-hewm  by  the  most  vivid  imagination,  and  certainly  before  any  thing  ap- 
proximating scientific  deduction  respecting  it  can  be  had. 

You  will  please  to  consider  yourselves.  Ladies  and  Grentlemen,  as  a  jury  apan- 
elled  to  try  this  issue.  I  take  my  position  before  you  as  the  advocate  of  the  Sover- 
eignty of  the  Individual,  and  the  defender  of  the  spirit  of  the  present  age.  If  this 
principle  be  essentially  good  and  true,  then  it  may  be  trusted  wherever  it  leads, 
and  the  general  drift  of  what  the  world  calls  "Progress"  is  in  the  right  direction, 
whatever  mistakes  may  be  made  in  matters  of  detail.  If  it  is  a  false  principle,  the 
sooner  we  understand  that  fact  the  better;  but  let  it  be  also  understood,  in  that 
case,  that  we  have  much  to  undo  which  has  been  already  done,  and  which  has  been 


The  True  Constitution  of  Government.  13 

supposed  to  be  well  done,  in  these  modem  times.  In  that  case,  Protestantism  is 
all  wrong,  and  Democracy  is  all  wrong ;  the  Whateleys,  the  Wisemans,  the  Bron- 
sons,  the  Windischgratzes,  and  the  Haynaus  are  philosophers  and  philanthropists 
of  the  right  school ;  and  the  Luthers,  the  Channings,  the  Jeffersons,  the  Washing- 
tons,  and  the  Kossuths  are  the  world's  worst  foes, — the  betrayers  and  scourgers 
which  the  wrath  of  an  offended  Heaven  has  let  loose  upon  earth,  first  to  delude 
and  then  to  punish  mankind  for  their  sins. 

I  will  first  endeavor  to  set  before  you  a  clearer  view  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Sover- 
eignty of  the  Individual,  as  based  upon  the  principle  of  the  infinite  Individuality 
of  things.  I  will  then  show  that  this  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  furnishes  the 
law  of  the  development  of  human  society,  as  illustrated  in  the  progressive  move- 
ments of  modern  times.  Finally,  I  shall  endeavor  to  trace  the  development  which 
is  hereafter  to  result  from  the  further  operation  of  this  principle,  and  to  fix,  so 
nearly  as  may  be,  the  condition  of  human  affau-s  toward  which  it  conducts,  especi- 
ally in  that  particular  department  of  human  affairs  which  constitutes  the  subject 
of  investigation  this  evening, — namely,  the  government  of  mankind. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual — in  one  sense  itself  a  prin- 
ciple— grows  out  of  the  still  more  fimdamental  principle  of  "Individuality," 
which  pervades  miiversal  nature.  Individuality  is  positively  the  most  fundamental 
and  universal  principle  which  the  finite  mind  seems  capable  of  discovering,  and  the 
best  image  of  the  Infinite.  There  are  no  two  objects  in  the  universe  which  are  pre- 
ciselyalike.  Each  has  its  own  constitution  and  peculiarities,  which  distinguish  it 
from  every  other.  Infinite  diversity  is  the  universal  law.  In  the  multitude  of 
human  countenances,  for  example,  there  are  no  two  alike,  and  in  the  multitude  of 
human  characters  there  is  the  same  variety.  The  hour  which  your  courtesy  has 
assigned  to  me  would  be  entirely  consumed,  if  I  were  to  attempt  to  adduce  a  thou- 
sandth part  of  the  illustrations  of  this  subtile  principle  of  Individuality,  which  lie 
patent  upon  the  face  of  natm-e,  aU  around  me.  It  applies  equally  to  persons,  to 
things,  and  to  events.  There  have  been  no  two  occurrences  which  were  precisely 
alike  during  all  the  cycling  periods  of  time.  No  action,  transaction,  or  set  of  cir- 
cumstances whatsoever  ever  corresponded  precisely  to  any  other  action,  transaction, 
or  set  of  circumstances.  Had  I  a  precise  knowledge  of  aU  the  occurrences  which 
have  ever  taken  place  up  to  this  hour,  it  would  not  sufiice  to  enable  me  to  make  a 
law  wl  xh.  would  be  applicable  in  all  respects  to  the  very  next  occurrence  which 
shall  take  place,  nor  to  any  one  of  the  infinite  millions  of  events  which  shall  here- 
after occur.  This  diversity  reigns  throughout  every  kingdom  of  nature,  and  mocks 
at  all  human  attempts  to  make  laws,  or  constitutions,  or  regulations,  or  govern- 
mental institutions  of  any  sort,  which  shall  work  justly  and  harmoniously  amidst 
the  unforeseen  contingencies  of  the  future. 

The  individualities  of  objects  are  least,  or,  at  all  events,  they  are  less  apparent 
when  the  objects  are  inorganic  or  of  a  low  grade  of  organization.     The  individual- 


14  The  Science  of  Society. 

ities  of  the  grains  of  sand  which  compose  the  beach,  for  example,  are  less  marked 
than  those  of  vegetables,  and  those  of  vegetables  are  less  than  those  of  animals, 
and,  finally,  those  of  anunais  are  less  than  those  of  man.  In  proportion  as  an  object 
is  more  complex,  it  embodies  a  greater  number  of  elements,  and  each  element  has 
its  own  individualities,  or  diversities,  in  every  new  combination  into  which  it 
enters.  Consequently  these  diversities  are  multij)lied  into  each  other,  in  the  infi- 
nite augmentation  of  geometrical  progression.  Man,  standing,  then,  at  the  head 
of  the  created  vmiverse,  is  consequently  the  most  complex  creature  in  existence, — 
every  individual  man  or  woman  being  a  little  world  in  him  or  herself,  an  image 
or  reflection  of  God,  an  epitome  of  the  Infinite.  Hence  the  individualities  of  such 
a  being  are  utterly  immeasurable,  and  every  attempt  to  adjust  the  capacities,  the 
adaptations,  the  wants,  or  the  responsibilities  of  one  human  being  by  the  capaci- 
ties, the  adaptations,  the  wants,  or  the  responsibilities  of  another  human  being, 
except  in  the  very  broadest  generalities,  is  unqualifiedly  futile  and  hopeless.  Hence 
every  ecclesiastical,  governmental,  or  social  institution  which  is  based  on  the  idea 
of  demanding  conformity  or  likeness  in  any  thing,  has  ever  been,  and  ever  wiU  be, 
frustrated  by  the  operation  of  this  subtile,  all-pervading  principle  of  Individuality. 
Hence  human  society  has  ever  been  and  is  still  in  the  turmoil  of  revolution.  The 
only  alternative  known  has  been  between  revolution  and  despotism.  Revolutions 
violently  burst  the  bonds,  and  explode  the  foundations  of  existing  institutions. 
The  institution  falls  before  the  Individual.  Despotism  only  succeeds  by  denatu- 
ralizing mankind.  It  extinguishes  their  individualities  only  by  extinguishing 
them.  The  Individual  faUs  before  the  institution.  Judge  ye  which  is  best,  the 
man-made  or  the  God-made  thing. 

In  the  next  place  this  Individuality  is  inherent  and  unconquerable,  except,  as  I 
have  just  said,  by  extinguishing  the  man  himself.  The  man  himself  has  no  power 
over  it.  He  can  not  divest  himself  of  his  organic  peculiarities  of  character,  any 
'  more  than  he  can  divest  himself  of  his  features.  It  attends  him  even  in  the  effort 
he  makes,  if  he  makes  any,  to  divest  himself  of  it.  He  may  as  well  attempt  to 
flee  his  own  shadow  as  to  rid  himself  of  the  indefeasible,  God-given  inheritance  of 
his  own  Individuality. 

Finally,  this  indestructible  and  aU-pervading  Individuality  furnishes,  itself,  the 
law,  and  the  only  true  law,  of  order  and  harmony.  Governments  have  hitherto 
been  established,  and  have  apologized  for  the  unseemly  fact  of  their  existence,  from 
the  necessity  of  establishing  and  maintaining  order;  but  order  has  never  yet  been 
maintained,  revolutions  and  violent  outbreaks  have  never  yet  been  ended,  public 
peace  and  harmony  have  never  yet  been  secured,  for  the  precise  reason  that  the  or- 
ganic, essential,  and  indestructible  natures  of  the  objects  which  it  was  attempted 
to  reduce  to  order  have  always  been  constricted  and  infringed  by  every  such  at- 
tempt. Just  in  proportion  as  the  effort  is  less  and  less  made  to  reduce  men  to 
order,  just  in  that  proportion  they  become  more  orderly,  as  witness  the  difference 


The  True  Constitution  of  Government.  15 

in  the  state  of  society  in  Austria  and  the  United  States.  Plant  an  army  of  one 
hundred  thousand  soldiers  in  New  York,  as  at  Paris,  to  preserve  the  peace,  and  we 
should  have  a  bloody  revolution  in  a  week ;  and  be  assured  that  the  only  remedy 
for  what  little  of  turbulence  remains  among  us,  as  compared  with  European  soci- 
eties, will  be  found  to  be  more  liberty.  When  there  remain  positively  no  external 
restrictions,  there  wUl  be  positively  no  disturbance,  provided  always  certain  regu- 
lating prmciples  of  justice,  to  which  I  shall  advert  presently,  are  accepted  and 
enter  into  the  public  mind,  serving  as  substitutes  for  every  species  of  repressive 
laws. 

I  was  saying  that  Individuality  is  the  essential  law  of  order.  This  is  true 
throughout  the  universe.  When  every  individual  particle  of  matter  obeys  the  law 
of  its  own  attraction,  and  comes  into  that  precise  position,  and  moves  in  that  pre- 
cise direction,  which  its  own  inherent  individualities  demand,  the  harmony  of  the 
spheres  is  evolved.  By  that  means  only  natural  classification,  natural  order,  natu- 
ral organization,  natural  harmony  and  agreement  are  attained.  Every  scheme  or 
arrangement  which  is  based  upon  the  principle  of  thwarting  the  inherent  affinities 
of  the  individual  monads  which  compose  any  system  or  organism  is  essentially  vi- 
cious, and  the  organization  is  false,  —  a  mere  bundle  of  revolutionary  and  antago- 
nistic atoms.  It  is  time  that  human  system  builders  should  begin  to  discover  this 
universal  truth.  The  principle  is  self-evident.  Objects  bound  together  contrary 
to  their  nature  must  and  will  seek  to  rectify  themselves  by  breaking  the  bonds 
which  confine  them,  while  those  which  come  together  by  their  own  affinities  remain 
quiescent  and  content.  Let  human  system  makers  of  all  sorts,  then,  admit  the 
principle  of  an  infinite  Individuality  among  men,  which. can  not  be  suppressed, 
and  which  must  be  indulged  and  fostered,  at  all  events,  as  one  element  in  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  they  have  before  them.  If  they  are  unable  to  see  clearly  how 
all  external  restrictions  can  be  removed  with  safety  to  the  well-being  of  society, 
let  them,  nevertheless,  not  abandon  a  principle  which  is  self-evident,  but  let  them 
modestly  suspect  that  there  may  be  some  other  elements  in  the  solution  of  the  same 
problem,  which  their  sagacity  has  not  yet  enabled  them  to  discover.  In  all  events, 
and  at  all  hazards,  this  Individuality  of  every  member  of  the  human  family  must 
be  recognized  and  indulged,  because  first,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  infinite,  and  can 
not  be  measured  or  prescribed  for;  then,  because  it  is  inherent,  and  can  not  b© 
conquered ;  and,  finally,  because  it  is  the  essential  element  of  order,  and  can  not, 
consequently,  be  infringed  without  engendering  infinite  confusion,  such  as  has 
hitherto  universally  reigned,  in  the  administration  of  human  affairs. 

If,  now,  Individuality  is  a  universal  law  which  must  be  obeyed  if  we  would  have 
order  and  harmony  in  any  sphere,  and,  consequently,  if  we  would  have  a  true  con- 
stitution of  human  government,  then  the  absolute  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual 
necessarily  results.  The  monads  or  atoms  of  which  human  society  is  composed  are 
the  individual  men  and  women  in  it.    They  must  be  so  disposed  of,  as  we  have  seen, 


16  The  Science  of  Society, 

in  order  that  society  may  be  harmonic,  that  the  destiny  of  each  shall  be  controlled  by 
his  or  her  own  individualities  of  taste,  conscience,  intellect,  capacities,  and  will. 
But  man  is  a  being  endowed  with  consciousness.  He,  and  no  one  else,  knows  the 
determining  force  of  his  own  attractions.  Xo  one  else  can  therefore  decide  for 
him,  and  hence  Individuality  can  only  become  the  law  of  human  action  by  secur- 
ing to  each  individual  the  sovereign  determination  of  his  own  judgment  and  of  his 
own  conduct,  in  all  things,  with  no  right  reserved  either  of  punishment  or  censure 
on  the  part  of  any  body  else  whomsoever ;  and  this  is  what  is  meant  by  the  Sover- 
eignty of  the  Individual,  limited  only  by  the  ever-accompanying  condition,  result- 
ing from  the  equal  Sovereignty  of  all  others,  that  the  onerous  consequences  of  his 
actions  be  assumed  by  himself. 

If  my  audieuce  were  composed  chiefly  of  Catholics,  or  Monarchists,  or  Anti- 
Progressionists  of  any  sort,  I  should  develop  this  argument  more  at  length,  for,  as 
I  have  said,  it  is  the  real  issue,  and  the  only  real  issue,  between  the  reformatory  and 
the  conservative  portions  of  mankind;  but  I  suppose  that  I  may,  with  propriety, 
assume  that  I  am  before  an  auditory  who  are  in  the  main  Protestant  and  Demo- 
cratic, and,  assuming  that,  I  shall  then  be  authorized  to  assume,  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  I  have  endeavored  to  develop,  that  they  are  likewise  substan- 
tially Socialist,  according  to  the  definition  I  have  given  to  Socialism,  whether  they 
have  hitherto  accepted  or  repudiated  the  name.  It  is  enough,  however,  if  I  address 
you  as  Protestants  and  Democrats,  or  as  either  of  these.  I  shall  therefore  assume, 
without  fm'ther  dwelling  upon  the  fundamental  statement  of  those  principles,  that 
you  are  ready  to  admit  so  much  of  Individuality  and  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the 
Individual  as  is  necessarily  involved  in  the  propositions  of  Protestantism  or  Demo- 
cracy. I  shall  assxmae  that  I  am  before  an  assembly  of  men  and  women  who  sym- 
pathize with  ecclesiastical  and  political  enfranchisement, — who  believe  that  what 
the  world  calls  Progress,  in  these  modern  times,  is  in  the  main  real  and  not  sham 
progress,  a  genuine  and  legitimate  development  of  the  race.  Instead,  therefore, 
of  pursuing  the  main  argument  fm-ther,  I  will  return  to,  and  endeavor  more  fully 
to  establish,  a  position  which  I  have  already  assumed,  —  namely,  that,  by  virtue  of 
the  fact  of  being  either  a  Protestant  or  a  Democrat,  you  have  admitted  away  the 
whole  case,  and  that  you  are  fully  committed  to  the  whole  doctrine  of  Individu- 
ality and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  wherever  that  may  lead. 

I  assert,  then,  the  doctrine  of  Individuality,  in  its  broadest  and  most  unlimited 
sense.  I  assert  that  the  law  of  genuine  progress  in  human  affairs  is  identical  with 
the  tendency  to  individualize.  In  ecclesiastical  affairs  it  is  the  breaking  up  of  the 
Church  into  sects,  the  breaking  up  of  the  larger  sects  into  minor  sects,  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  minor  sects,  by  continual  schism,  into  still  minuter  fragments  of 
sects,  and,  finally,  a  complete  disintegration  of  the  whole  mass  into  individuals,  at 
which  point  every  human  being  becomes  his  own  sect  and  his  own  church.  Does 
it  require  any  demonstration  that  this  is  the  natural  tendency  and  the  legitimate 


The  True,   Constitution  of  Govei^ment.  17 

development  of  Protestantism,  that  it  is  in  fact  the  necessary  and  inevitable  out- 
growth of  its  own  fundamental  principle.  The  History  of  all  Religions  in  Protest- 
ant Christendom  is  becoming  already  too  voluminous  to  be  written.  With  the 
multiplication  of  sects  grows  the  spirit  of  toleration,  which  is  nothing  else  but  the 
recoguitiuu  vi  the  sovereignty  of  others.  X  glance  at  the  actual  condition  of  the 
Protestant  Church  demonstrates  the  tendency  to  the  obliteration  of  Sectarianism 
by  the  very  superabundance  of  sects. 

In  the  political  sphere  the  individualizing  tendency  of  Democracy  is  exhibited 
in  the  distribution  of  the  departments  of  government  into  the  hands  of  different 
depositaries  of  power,  the  discrimination  of  the  chief  functions  of  government  into 
the  Legislature,  the  Executive,  and  the  Judiciary,  in  the  division  of  the  Legisla- 
ture into  distinct  branches,  in  the  representative  system  which  recognizes  the  In- 
dividuality of  different  confederated  states,  and  of  different  portions  of  the  same 
state,  in  the  divorce  of  the  Church  and  State,  and  yet  more  strikingly  than  aU  in 
the  successive  surrender  to  the  Individual  of  one  branch  after  another  of  what  was 
formerly  regarded  as  the  legitimate  business  of  government. 

Under  the  old  order  of  things,  government  interfered  to  determine  the  trade  or 
occupation  of  the  Individual,  to  settle  his  religious  faith,  to  regulate  his  locomo- 
tion, to  prescribe  his  hours  of  relaxation  and  retu'emeut,  the  length  of  his  beard, 
the  cut  of  his  apparel,  his  relative  rank,  the  mode  of  his  social  intercourse,  and  so 
on  continuously,  until  government  was  in  fact  every  thing,  and  the  Individual  no- 
thing. Democracy,  working  somewhat  blindly,  it  is  true,  but  yet  guided  by  a  true 
instinct,  begotten  by  its  own  great  indwelling  vital  principle,  the  Sovereignty  of 
the  Individual,  has  already  substantially  revolutionized  all  that.  It  has  swept 
away,  for  the  most  part,  in  America  at  least,  the  impertinent  interference  of  govern- 
ment with  the  pursuits,  the  religious  opinions  and  ceremonies,  the  travel,  the 
amusements,  the  dress,  and  the  manners  of  the  citizen.  One  whole  third  of  the 
field  heretofore  occupied  by  government  has  thus  been  surrendered  to  the  Indivi- 
dual. To  this  point  we  have  already  attained,  practical^,  at  the  precise  stage  at 
which  we  now  are  in  the  transition  from  the  past  to  the  future  model  of  the  organi- 
zation of  society. 

But  the  principle  of  Democracy  does  not  stop  here.  Government  still  interferes, 
even  in  these  United  States,  in  some  instances,  with  the  social  and  political  statux 
of  the  Individual,  as  in  the  case  of  slaver)%  with  commerce,  with  the  title  to  the 
soil,  with  the  validity  of  private  obligations,  with  the  treatment  of  crime,  and, 
finally,  with  the  marriage  and  parental  relationships  of  the  citizen ;  and  it  is  obvi- 
ously an  incongruous  fact  that  it  interferes  with  all  these,  in  many  instances  at 
least,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  citizen,  who,  according  to  our  political  theory, 
is  himself  the  sovereign,  and  consequently  the  voluntary  fabricator  of  that  which 
annoys  him.  To  the  philosophical  mind  there  is  that  in  this  incongruity  alone 
which  predicts  the  ultimate  emancipation  of  tlie  citizen  from  the  restrictions  of  le- 


18  The  Science  of  Society. 

gislation  aud  jurisprudence,  in  every  aspect  of  his  existence.  Accordingly,  there 
is  another  whole  thu-d  of  the  domain  hitherto  occupied  by  Government  which  is  at 
this  moment  in  dispute  between  it  and  the  Individual.  The  whole  of  that  legisla- 
tion w^hich  establishes  or  tolerates  that  form  of  human  bondage  which  is  called 
slavery  is  at  this  moment  undergoing  the  most  determined  and  vigorous  onset  of 
public  opinion  which  any  false  and  tyrannical  institution  of  Government  was  ever 
called  upon  to  endure.  The  full  and  final  abolition  of  slavery  can  not  but  be  re- 
garded, by  every  reflecting  mind,  as  prospectively  certain.  Such  is  the  fiat  of 
Democracy;  such  is  the  inevitable  sequitur  from  the  Democratic  premise  of  inherent 
political  rights.  Government  interferes,  again,  to  regulate  commerce;  but  what  is 
the  demand  of  Democracy  in  relation  to  that?  Nothing  short  of  absolute  free 
trade.  Democracy  says  to  Government,  Hands  off !  Let  the  Individual  determine 
for  himself  when,  and  where,  and  how  he  will  buy  and  sell.  Does  any  one  doubt 
that  Democracy  will,  in  the  long  run,  have  its  own  way  in  relation  to  this  matter 
as  well,  and  that  tariffs,  and  custom  houses,  and  coUectorships,  and  the  whole  lum- 
bering paraphernalia  of  indirect  taxation,  which  fences  out  the  intercourse  of  na- 
tions, will  be  looked  back  upon,  in  a  generation  or  two,  in  a  light  akin  to  that  in 
which  the  police  system  of  Fouche,  the  passport  system  of  the  despotic  countries  of 
Eiirope,  and  the  censorship  of  the  press  are  now  regarded  by  us?  Government 
still  interferes  to  control  the  public  domam ;  but  abeady  an  organized  and  rapidly 
augmenting  political  organization  is  demanding  in  this  country  a  surrender  of  this 
whole  subject  to  the  Individual  Sovereigns  who  make  the  Government,  and  who 
need  the  land.  Nor  are  the  modest  pretensions  of  Land  Reform,  which  as  yet 
touch  only  the  public  domain,  likely  to  end  at  that.  The  very  foundation  prin- 
ciples of  the  ownership  of  land,  as  vested  in  individuals  and  protected  by  law,  can 
not  escape  much  longer  from  a  searching  and  radical  investigation ;  and  when  that 
comes,  the  arbitrary  legislation  of  Government  will  have  to  give  place  to  such  natu- 
ral and  scientific  .principles  regulating  the  subject  as  niay  be  evolved.  Land  Re- 
forra,  in  its  present  aspect,  is  merely  the  prologue  to  a  thoiough  aud  unsparing,  but 
philosophical  and  equitable  agrarianism,  by  means  of  which  either  the  land  itself, 
or  an  equal  participation  in  the  benefits  of  the  land,  shall  be  secured  to  the  whole 
people.  Science,  not  human  legislation,  must  finally  govern  the  distribution  of  the 
soil.  Government,  again,  interferes  with  contracts  and  private  obligations.  But 
already  the  demand  is  growing  loud  for  the  abolition  of  the  usury  laws,  and  a  dis- 
tant miu'muring  is  overheard  of  the  question  whether  good  faith  and  the  mainten- 
ance of  credit  would  not  be  promoted  by  dispensing  with  all  laws  for  the  collection 
of  debts.  Both  the  statesman  and  the  citizen  have  observed,  not  without  profound 
consideration,  the  significant  fact  that  the  fear  of  the  law  is  less  potential  for  the 
enforcement  of  obligations  than  commercial  honor ;  that  the  protest  of  a  notary,  or 
even  a  whisper  of  suspicion  on  Change,  is  fraught  with  a  cogency  which  neither  a 
bench  warrant  nor  a  cajnas  ad  satisfaciendum  ever  possessed.     Government  still 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  19 

deals  with  criminals  by  the  old-fashioned  process  of  punishment,  but  both  science 
and  philanthropy  concur  in  pronouncing  that  the  grand  remedial  agency  for  crime 
is  prevention,  and  not  cure.  The  whole  theory  of  vindictive  punishment  is  rapidly 
obsolescent.  That  theory  once  dead,  all  that  remains  of  punishment  is  simply  de- 
fensive. Imprisonment  melts  into  the  euphemism,  detention ;  and,  while  detained, 
the  prisoner  is  treated  tenderly,  as  a  diseased  or  unfortunate  person.  Nor  does 
Democracy  stop  at  that.  Democracy  declares  that  liberty  is  an  inalienable  right, 
the  inherent  prerogative  of  the  Individual  Sovereign,  of  which  there  is  no  possible 
defeasance,  even  by  his  own  act.  Democracy  therefore  claims,  or  will  claim  when 
it  better  understands  the  universality  of  its  own  pretension,  either  such  conditions 
of  society  that  criminals  shall  no  longer  be  made,  or  else  that  some  more  delicate 
method  of  guardianship  shall  be  devised  which  shall  respect  the  dignity  with  which 
Democracy  invests  the  Individual  man. 

Wheu  the  battles  which  are  thus  already  waged  in  these  various  departments  of  "' 
human  affaii'S  between  Government  and  the  Individual  shall  have  been  finally 
fought  and  won,  the  domain  of  Government  will  have  shrunk  to  the  merest  frag- 
ment of  its  old  dimensions.  Hardly  any  sphere  of  legislation,  worthy  of  the  name, 
will  remain,  save  that  of  tlie  marriage  and  parental  relations.  These  are  subjects 
of  great  delicacy,  and  form,  ordinarily,  an  insuperable  barrier  to  the  freedom  of 
investigation  in  this  direction.  It  is  in  connection  with  these  subjects  that  men 
shrink  with  dismay  from  what  they  understand  to  be  the  programme  of  Socialism. 
A  brief  consideration  of  the  subject,  conducted  with  the  boldness  and  impartiality 
of  science,  will  demonstrate,  however,  that  the  most  extreme  proposition  of  Social- 
ism does  not  transcend,  in  the  least,  the  legitimate  operation  of  the  fundamental 
principle  of  either  Protestantism  or  Democracy.  There  is  that,  both  in  one  and 
the  other,  which,  carried  simply  out  to  its  logical  and  inevitable  conclusion,  covers 
the  whole  case  of  marriage  and  the  love  relations,  and  completely  emancipates  them 
from  the  impertinent  interference  of  human  legislation.  First,  what  says  Protest- 
antism? Why,  that  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  conscience  is  para- 
mount to  all  other  authority  whatsoever.  But  marriage  has  been,  in  all  ages,  a 
subject  eminently  under  the  dominion  of  conscience  and  the  religious  sense.  Be- 
sides, it  is  one  of  the  best  recognized  principles  of  high-toned  religionism  that  every 
action  of  the  life  is  appr,opriately  made  matter  of  conscience,  inasmuch  as  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  Individual  toward  God  is  held  to  extend  to  every,  even  the  mi- 
nutest thing,  which  the  Individual  does.  No  man,  we  are  told,  can  answer  for  his 
brother.  This,  then,  settles  the  whole  question.  It  abandons  the  whole  subject  to 
the  conscience  of  the  Individual.  It  implies  the  charge  of  a  spiritual  despotism, 
wholly  unwarranted,  for  any  man  to  interfere  with  the  conscientious  determination 
of  any  other  with  regard  to  it.  Nor  can  it  be  objected,  with  any  effect,  that  this  . — 
rule  only  applies  when  the  determination  of  the  Individual  accords  with,  and  is 
based  upon,  his  own  conscientious  conviction,  for  who  shall  determine  w  hether  it 


20  The  Science  of  Society. 

be  so  or  not?  Clearly  no  one  but  the  Individual  himself.  Any  tribunal  assuming 
to  do  it  for  him  would  be  the  Inquisition  over  again,  -which  is  the  special  abhorrence 
of  Protestantism.  Such,  then,  is  the  Protestant  faith.  But  what,  let  us  inquire, 
is  the  Protestant  practice?  Precisely  what  it  should  be,  in  strict  accordance  with 
the  fundamental  axiom  of  Protestantism.  Every  variety  of  conscience  and  every 
variety  of  deportment  in  reference  to  this  precise  subject  of  love  is  already  tolerated 
among  us.  At  one  extreme  of  the  scale  stand  the  Shakers,  who  abjure  the  connec- 
tion of  the  sexes  altogether.  At  the  other  extremity  stands  the  association  of  Per- 
fectionists, at  Oneida,  who  hold  and  practise,  and  justify  by  the  Scriptures,  as  a 
religious  dogma,  what  they  denominate  complex  marriage,  or  the  freedom  of  love. 
We  have,  in  this  State,  stringent  laws  against  adultery  and  fornication ;  but  laws 
of  that  sort  fall  powerless,  in  America,  before  the  all-pervading  sentiment  of  Pro- 
testantism, which  vindicates  the  freedom  of  conscience  to  aU  persons  and  in  all 
things,  provided  the  consequences  fall  upon  the  parties  themselves.  Hence  the 
Oneida  Perfectionists  live  undisturbed  and  respected,  in  the  heart  of  the  State  of 
New  York,  and  in  the  face  of  the  world;  and  the  civil  government,  true  to  the 
Democratic  principle,  which  is  only  the  same  principle  in  another  application,  is 
little  anxious  to  interfere  with  this  breach  of  its  own  ordinances,  so  long  as  they 
cast  none  of  the  consequences  of  their  conduct  upon  those  who  do  not  consent  to 
bear  them. 

Such,  then,  is  the  unlimited  sweep  of  the  fundamental  axiom  of  Protestantism. 
Such  its  unhesitating  indorsements,  both  theoretically  and  practically,  of  the  whole 
doctrine  of  the  absolute  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual.  It  does  not  help  the  mat- 
ter to  assert  that  it  is  an  u-religious  or  a  very  immoral  act  to  do  this,  or  that,  or  the 
other  thing.  Protestantism  neither  asserts  or  denies  that.  It  merely  asserts  that 
there  is  no  power  to  determine  that  question  higher  than  the  Individual  himself. 
It  does  not  help  the  matter  to  affirm  that  the  Scriptures,  or  the  law  of  God,  deliv- 
ered in  any  form,  have  determined  the  nature  and  limits  of  marriage.  Protestant- 
ism, again,  neither  denies  that  proposition  nor  affirms  it.  It  merely  affirms,  again, 
that  the  Individual  himself  must  decide  for  hunself  what  the  law  of  God  is,  and 
that  there  is  no  authority  higher  than  himself  to  whose  decision  he  can  be  required 
to  submit.  It  is  arrogance,  seH-righteousness,  and  spiritual  despotism  for  me  to 
assume  that  you  have  not  a  conscience  as  well  as  I,  and  that,  if  you  regulate  your' 
own  conduct  in  the  light  of  that  conscience,  it  will  not  be  as  well  regulated  in  the 
sight  of  God  as  it  would  be  if  I  were  to  impose  the  decisions  of  my  conscience 
upon  you. 

In  general,  however,  Government  still  interferes  with  the  marriage  and  parental 
relations.  Democracy  in  America  has  always  proceeded  with  due  deference  to  the 
prudential  motto,  fentina  lente.  In  France,  at  the  time  of  the  first  Revolution,  Demo- 
cracy rushed  with  the  explosive  force  of  escapement  from  centuries  of  compression, 
point  blank  to  the  bull's  eye  of  its  final  destiny,  from  which  it  recoiled  with  such 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  21 

force  that  the  stupid  world  has  dreamed,  for  half  a  century,  that  the  vital  principle 
of  Democracy  was  dead.  As  a  logical  sequence  from  Democratic  principle,  the  le- 
gal obligation  of  marriage  was  sundered,  and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual 
above  the  institution  was  vindicated.  That  the  principle  of  Democracy  is,  poten- 
tially, still  the  same  will  appear  upon  slight  examination.  Democracy  denies  all 
power  to  Government  in  matters  of  religion.  No  Democratic  Government  does, 
therefore,  or  can  base  its  interference  with  marriage  upon  the  religious  ground.  It 
defines  marriage  to  be,  and  regards  it  as  being,  a  mere  civil  contract.  It  justifies 
its  own  interference  with  it  upon  the  same  ground  that  it  justifies  its  interference 
with  other  contracts, — namely,  to  enforce  the  civil  obligations  connected  with  it, 
and  to  insure  the  maintenance  of  children.  But  here,  as  in  the  case  of  ordinary 
obligations,  if  the  conviction  obtains  that  different  conditions  of  society  will  render 
the  present  relations  of  property  between  husband  and  wife  imnecessary,  and  se- 
cure, by  the  equitable  distribution  and  general  abundance  of  wealth,  a  universal 
deference  on  the  part  of  parents  to  the  dictates  of  nature  in  behalf  of  children. 
Democracy  will  cease  to  make  this  subject  an  exception  to  her  dominant  principles. 
A  tendency  to  change  these  conditions  is  already  shown  in  the  passage  of  laws  to 
secure  to  the  wife  an  independent  or  individual  enjoyment  of  property.  Already 
the  observation  is  made,  too,  that  children  are  never  abandoned  among  the  wealthy 
classes,  and  hence  the  natural  inference  that  the  scientific  production,  the  equitable 
distribution,  and  the  economical  employment  of  wealth  would  render  human  laws 
unnecessary  to  enforce  the  first  mandate  of  nature, — hospitality  and  kindness  to- 
ward offspring.  The  doctrine  is  already  considerably  diffused  that  the  union  of 
the  sexes  would  be,  not  only  more  pure,  but  more  permanent,  in  the  absence,  under 
favorable  circumstances,  of  all  legal  interference.  But  whether  that  be  so  or  not  is 
not  now  the  question.  I  am  merely  asserting  that  the  inevitable  tendency  of  De- 
mocracy, like  that  of  Protestantism,  is  toward  abandoning  this  subject  to  the  sover- 
eign determination  of  the  Individual,  and  that  Democracy  in  this  country  will 
attain,  only  more  leisurely,  the  same  point  to  which  it  went  at  a  single  leap,  and 
from  which  it  rebounded,  in  France. 

It  is  far  less  obvious,  judgmg  from  the  practical  exhibition  which  it  has  hitherto 
made  of  itself,  that  the  essential  principle  of  Socialism  is,  equally  with  that  of  Pro- 
testantism and  Democracy,  the  Individual  Sovereignty.  Indeed,  Socialism  has 
been  attacked  and  resisted  more  vigorously  than  from  any  other  cause  in  conse- 
quence of  an  instinctive  perception  that  the  measures  hitherto  proposed  by  it  sap 
the  freedom  of  the  Individual.  The  connected  interests  and  complicated  artificial 
organization  proposed  by  Fourier,  and  the  renunciation  of  independent  ownership 
contemplated  by  Communism,  have  been  severely  criticised  and  denounced,  and 
the  most  so,  perhaps,  by  those  who  are  the  most  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  Pro- 
testant and  Democratic  idea  of  Individuality.  To  understand  this  apparent  dis- 
crepancy  we  must   distinguish  the  leading  idea  of  Socialism  from  the  methods 


22  The  Science  of  Society. 

proposed  by  its  advocates.  The  two  are  quite  distinct  fi-om  each  other,  and  it  may 
be  that  Socialism  has  mistaken  its  measures,  as  every  human  enterprise  is  liable 
to  do. 

Socialism  demands  the  proper,  legitimate,  and  just  reward  of  labor.  It  demands 
that  the  interests  of  all  shall  be  so  arranged  that  they  shall  cooperate,  instead  of 
clashing  with  and  counteracting  each  other.  It  demands  economy  in  the  produc- 
tion and  uses  of  wealth,  and  the  consequent  abolition  of  wretchedness  and  poverty. 
To  what  end  does  it  make  these  demands?  Clearly  it  is  in  order  that  every  human 
being  shall  be  in  the  full  possession,  control,  and  enjoyment  of  his  own  person  and 
modes  of  seeking  happiness,  without  foreign  interference  from  any  quarter  whatso- 
ever. This,  then,  is  the  spirit  of  Socialism,  and  it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
still  broader  and  more  comprehensive  assertion  of  the  doctrine  of  the  inherent  Sov- 
ereignty of  the  Individual.  The  Socialist  proposes  association  and  combined  inter- 
ests merely  as  a  means  of  securing  that  which  he  aims  at, — justice,  cooperation, 
and  the  economies  of  the  large  scale.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  Democrat  resists 
and  the  Socialist  advocates  Association  and  Communism  for  precisely  the  same  rea- 
son. It  is  because  both  want  identically  the  same  thing.  The  Democrat  sees  in 
connected  interests  a  fatal  stroke  at  his  personal  liberty,  —  the  unlimited  sover- 
eignty over  his  own  conduct, — and  dreads  the  subjection  of  himself  to  domestic 
legislation,  manifold  committees,  and  continual  and  authorized  espionage  and  cri- 
ticism. The  Socialist  sees,  in  these  same  arrangements,  abundance  of  wealth, 
fairly  distributed  among  all,  and  a  thousand  beneficent  results  which  he  knows  to 
be  essential  conditions  to  the  possession  or  exercise  of  that  very  Sovereignty  of  the 
Individual.  Each  has  arrived  at  one  half  the  truth.  The  Socialist  is  right  in  as- 
serting that  all  the  conditions  which  he  demands  are  absolutely  essential  to  the 
development  of  the  individual  selfhood.  He  is  wrong  in  proposing  such  a  fatal 
surrender  of  Individual  liberty  for  their  attainment  as  every  form  of  amalgamated 
interests  inevitably  involves.  The  Democrat  is  negatively  wrong  in  omitting  from 
his  programme  the  absolute  necessity  for  harmonic  social  relations, — wrong  in 
supposing  that  there  can  always  be  a  safe  and  legitimate  exercise  of  those  rights 
which  he  declares  to  be  inalienable,  short  of  those  superior  domestic  arrangements 
"r^  which  the  Socialist  demands.  It  is  futile,  for  example,  to  talk  of  removing  the 
restraints  of  law  from  marriage,  thus  guaranteeing  freedom  in  "the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness" in  that  relation,  before  the  just  reward  of  labor  and  the  consequent  preva- 
lence of  general  wealth  shall  have  created  a  positive  security  of  condition  for  women 
and  children.  Hence  the  blunder  of  Democracy  in  the  old  French  Eevolution,  and 
hence  the  absolute  dependence  of  Democracy,  for  the  working  out  of  its  own  prin- 
ciples, upon  the  happy  solution  of  all  the  problems  of  Socialism.  Hence,  again, 
the  natural  affinity  of  Democracy  and  Socialism,  and  the  reason  why,  despite  of 
their  mutual  misunderstanding,  they  have  recently  fallen  into  each  other's  embrace, 
in  France,  resounding  in  the  ears  of  terrified  Europe  the  ominous  cry,  Vive  la  Re- 
publique  Democratique  et  Sociale. 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  23 

The  blunder  of  SocialLsm  is  not  in  its  end,  but  in  its  means.  It  consists  in  pro- 
pounding a  combination  of  interests  which  is  opposed  by  the  individualities  of  all 
nature,  which  is  consequently  a  restriction  of  liberty,  and  which  is,  therefore,  especi- 
ally afitagonistic  to  the  very  objects  which  Socialism  proposes  to  attain.  It  is  this 
which  prevents  the  harmony  of  Democracy  and  Socialism,  even  in  France,  from 
becoming  complete,  and  which  renders  inevitable  the  disruption  of  every  attempted 
social  organization  which  does  not  end  disastrously  in  despotism,  —  the  inverse 
mode  in  which  nature  vindicates  her  irresistible  determination  toward  Individu- 
ality. Let  that  feature  of  the  Socialist  movement  be  retrenched,  and  a  method  of 
securing  its  great  ends  discovered  which  shall  not  be  self-defeating  in  its  operation, 
and  from  that  point  Socialism  and  Democracy  will  blend  into  one,  and,  uniting 
with  Protestantism,  lose  their  distinctive  appellations  in  the  generic  term  of  Indi- 
vidual Sovereignty. 

Such  a  principle  is  already  discovered.  It  is  capable  of  satisfactory  demonstra- 
tion that  out  of  the  adoption  of  a  simple  change  in  the  commercial  system  of  the 
world,  by  which  cost  and  not  value  shall  be  recognized  as  the  limit  of  price,  will 
grow,  legitimately,  all  the  wealth-producing,  equitable,  cooperating,  and  harmoniz- 
ing results  which  Socialism  has  hitherto  sought  to  realize  through  the  combination 
or  amalgamation  of  interests,  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  will  leave,  intact,  the  in- 
dividualities of  existing  society,  and  even  promote  them  to  an  extent  not  hitherto 
conceived  of.  It  is  not  now,  however,  the  appropriate  time  to  trace  out  the  results 
of  such  a  principle.  We  are  concerned  at  present  with  Individuality  and  the  spi- 
rit of  the  age  as  connected  with  governmental  affairs. 

It  is  alreadj^  the  axiom  of  Democracy  that  that  is  the  best  government  which 
governs  least,  —  that,  in  other  words,  which  leaves  the  largest  domain  to  the  Indi- 
vidual sovereig-n.  It  may  sound  strange,  and  yet  it  is  rigidly  true,  that  nothing  is 
more  foreign  to  the  essential  nature  of  Democracy  than  the  rule  vf  majorities. 
Democracy  asserts  that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal, — that  is,  that  every  indi- 
vidual is  of  right  free  from  the  governing  control  of  every  other  and  of  all  others. 
Democracy  asserts,  also,  that  this  right  is  inalienable,  —  that  it  can  neither  lie  sur- 
rendered nor  forfeited  to  another  Individual,  nor  to  a  majority  of  other  Individuals. 
But  the  practical  application  of  this  principle  has  been,  and  will  always  be  found 
to  be,  incompatible  with  our  existing  social  order.  It  presupposes,  as  I  have  said, 
the  preliminary  attainment  of  the  conditions  demanded  by  Socialism,  The  rule  of 
majorities  is,  therefore,  a  compromise  enforced  by  temporary  expediency,  —  a  sort 
of  half-way  station-house  between  Despotism,  which  is  Individuality  in  the  concrete, 
and  the  Sovereignty  of  every  Individual,  which  is  Individuality  in  the  discrete 
form. 

Genuine  Democracy  is  identical  with  the  no-government  doctrine.  The  motto 
to  which  I  have  alluded  looks  directly  to  that  end.  Finding  obstacles  in  the  pre- 
sent social  organization  to  the  realization  of  its  theory,  Democracy  has  called  a  halt 


24  The  Science  of  Society. 

for  the  present,  and  consented  to  a  truce.  The  no-government  men  of  our  day  are 
practically  not  so  wise,  while  they  are  theoretically  more  consistent.  They  are,  in 
fact,  the  genuine  Democrats.  It  is  they  who  are  fairly  entitled  to  the  soubriquet 
of  "The  unterrified  Democracy."  They  fearlessly  face  all  consequences,  and  push 
their  doctrine  quite  out  to  its  logical  conclusions.  In  so  doing,  they  repeat  the 
blunder  which  was  committed  in  France.  They  insist  upon  no  government  higher 
than  that  of  the  Individual,  while  they  leave  in  existence  those  causes  which  im- 
peratively demand,  and  will  always  demand  so  long  as  they  exist,  the  intervention 
of  just  such  restrictive  governments  as  we  now  have. 

It  results  from  all  that  has  been  said  that  the  essential  principle  of  Protestant- 
ism, of  Democracy,  and  of  Socialism,  is  one  and  the  same;  that  it  is  identical  with 
what  is  called  the  spirit  of  the  present  age;  and  that  all  of  them  are  summed  up 
in  the  idea  of  the  absolute  supremacy  of  the  Individual  above  all  human  institutions. 

What,  then,  the  question  returns,  is  to  be  the  upshot  of  this  movement?  If  every 
department  of  modern  reform  is  imbued  with  one  and  the  same  animating  princi- 
ple ;  if  there  be  already  an  obvious  convergence,  and,  prospectively,  an  inevitable 
conjunction  and  cooperation  of  the  three  great  modern  revolutionary  forces.  Pro- 
testantism, Democracy,  and  Socialism;  if,  even  now,  in  their  disjointed  and  semi- 
antagonistic  relations,  they  prove  more  than  a  match  for  hoary  conservatism;  if, 
in  addition,  material  inventions  and  reforms  of  all  sorts  concur  in  the  same  direc- 
tion ;  if,  in  fine,  the  spirit  of  the  age,  or,  more  properly,  of  modern  times,  and  which 
we  recognize  also  as  the  spirit  of  human  improvement,  tends  continually  and  with 
accelerated  velocity  toward  the  absolute  Individualization  of  human  affairs, — what 
is  the  inevitable  goal  to  be  ultimately  reached?  I  have  said  that  in  religious  af- 
fairs tlie  end  must  be  that  every  man.  shall  be  his  own  sect.  This  is  the  simple 
meaning  of  Protestantism,  interpreted  in  the  light  of  its  own  principles.  If  the 
occasion  were  appropriate,  it  would  be  a  glorious  contemplation  to  dweU  upon  that 
more  perfect  harmony  which  will  then  reign  among  mankind  in  the  religious  sphere, 
—  a  unity  growing  out  of  infinite  diversity,  and  universal  deference  for  the  slight- 
est Individualities  of  opinion  in  others,  transcending  in  glory  that  hitherto  sought 
by  the  Church  in  artificial  organizations  and  arbitrary  creeds,  as  far  as  the  new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth  will  excel  the  old. 

Socialism  demands,  and  will  end  by  achieving,  the  untrammeled  selfhood  of  the 
Individual  in  the  private  relations  of  life,  but  out  of  that  universal  selfhood  shall 
grow  the  highest  harmonies  of  social  relationship.  It  is  not  these  subjects,  how- 
ever, that  are  now  specially  appropriate.  Let  us  restrict  our  specific  inquiry  to  the 
remaining  one  of  the  three  spheres  of  human  affairs  which  we  have  in  the  general 
view  considered  conjointly, — namely,  that  which  relates  to  human  government. 

Is  it  within  the  bounds  of  possibility,  and,  if  so,  is  it  within  the  limits  of  rational 
anticipation,  that  all  human  governments,  in  the  sense  in  which  government  is 
now  spoken  of,  shall  pass  away,  and  be  reckoned  among  the  useless  lumber  of  an 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government,  25 

experimental  age,— [tha^forciWe^ov«;nmeiitof3lLs.cff  fut_urfi_daj:i 

perhaps  not  far_distaut,  be  looked  back  upon  by  the  whole  world,  as  we  in  America 

~^now  look  back  upon  the  maintenance  of  a  religious  establishment,  supposed  in  other 
times,  and  in  many  countries  still,  to  be  essential  to  the  existence  of  religion  among 
men;  and  as  we  look  back  upon  the  ten  thousand  other  impertinent  interferences 
of  government,  as  government  is  practised  in  those  countries  where  it  is  an  insti- 
tution of  far  more  validity  and  consistency  than  it  has  among  us?  Is  it  possible, 
and,  if  so,  is  it  rationally  probable,  that  the  time  shall  ever  come  when  every  man 
shall  be,  in  fine,  hisown-natian  as  well  as  bis  own  sect?  Will  this  tendency  to  uni- 
versal enfranchisement  —  indications  of  which  present  themselves,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  exuberant  abundance  on  all  hands  in  this  age — ultimate  itself,  by  placing  the 
Individual  above  all  political  institutions, — the  man  above  all  subordination  to 
municipal  law? 

To  put  ourselves  in  a  condition  to  answer  this  inquiry  with  some  satisfactory 
degree  of  certainty,  we  must  first  obtain  a  clear  conception  of  the  necessities  out 
of  which  government  grows;  then  of  the  functions  which  government  performs; 
then  of  the  specific  tendencies  of  society  in  relation  to  those  functions ;  and,  finally, 
of  the  legitimate  successorship  for  the  existing  governmental  institutions  of  man- 
kind. 

,.  T  must  apologize  as  well  for  the  incompleteness  as  for  the  apparent  dogmatism 
of  any  brief  exposition  of  this  subject.  I  assert  that  it  is  not  only  possible  and  ra- 
tionally probable,  but  that  it  is  rigidly  consequential  upon  the  right  understanding 
of  the  constitution  of  man,  that  all  government,  in  the  sense  of  involuntary  restraint 
upon  the  Individual,  or  substantially  all,  must  finally  cease,  and  along  with  it  the 

)  whole  complicated  paraphernalia  and  trumpery  of  Kings,  Emperors,  Presidents, 

j  Legislatures^  and  Judiciary.  I  assert  that  the  indicia  of  this  result  abound  in  ex- 
isting society,  and  that  it  is  the  instinctive  or  intelligent  perception  of  that  fact  by 
those  who  have  not  bargained  for  so  much  which  gives  origin  and  vital  energy  to 
the  reaction  in  Church  and  State  and  social  life.  I  assert  that  the  distance  is  less 
today  forward  from  the  theory  and  practice  of  Government  as  it  is  in  these  United 
States,  to  the  total  abrogation  of  all  Government  above  that  of  the  Individual,  than 
it  is  backward  to  the  theory  and  practice  of  Government  as  Government  now  is  in 
the  despotic  countries  of  the  old  world. 

The  reason  why  apology  is  demanded  is  this :  So  radical  a  change  in  govern- 
mental affairs  involves  the  concurrence  of  other  equally  radical  changes  in  social 
habits,  commerce,  finance,  and  elsewhere.  I  have  shown  already,  I  think,  that  De- 
mocracy would  have  ended  in  that,  had  it  not  been  obstructed  by  the  want  of  cer- 
tain conditions  which  nothing  but  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  Socialism  can 
afford.  To  discuss  the  changes  which  must  occur  in  every  department  of  life,  in 
order  to  render  this  revolution  in  Government  practicable,  and  to  prove  that  those 
changes  now  exist  in  embryo,  would  be  to  embrace  the  whole  field  of  human  con- 


26  The  Science  of  Society. 

cerns.  That  is  clearly  impossible  in  the  compass  of  a  lecture.  But  it  is  equally 
impossible  to  adjust  the  radical  changes  which  I  foretell  in  Government  to  the  no- 
tion of  the  permanency  of  all  other  institutions  in  their  present  forms.  What,  then, 
can  be  done  in  this  dilemma?  I  am  reduced  to  a  method  of  treating  the  subject 
which  demands  apology,  both  for  incompleteness  and  apparent  dogmatism.  I  per- 
ceive no  possible  method  open  to  me  but  that  of  segregating  the  subject  of  Govern- 
ment from  its  connection  with  other  departments  of  life,  and  deducing  from 
principles  and  rational  grounds  of  conjecture  the  changes  which  it  is  destined  to 
undergo;  and  when  those  changes  involve  the  necessity  of  other  and  corresponding 
changes  elsewhere,  to  assert,  as  it  were,  dogmatically,  without  stopping  to  adduce 
the  proofs,  that  these  latter  changes  are  also  existing  in  embryo,  or  actually  pro- 
gressing. 

I  return  now  to  the  necessities  out  of  which  Government  grows.  These  are  in 
the  broadest  generalization :  1,  To  restrain  encroachments,  and,  2,  To  manage  the 
combined  interests  of  mankind. 

First,  with  regard  to  restraining  encroachments  and  enforcing  equity.  Is  there 
no  better  method  of  accomplishing  this  end  than  force,  such  as  existing  Govern- 
ments are  organized  to  apply?  I  affirm  that  there  is.  I  affirm  that  a  clear  scien- 
tific perception  of  the  point  at  which  encroachment  begins,^  in  all  our  manifold 
pecuniary  and  moral  relations  with..eajch  othefJ*an  exact  idea  of  the  requirements  , 
of  equity,  accepted  into  the  public  mind;  and  felt  to  be  capable  of  a  precise  appli- 
cation in  action,  would  go  tenfold  further  than  arbitrary  laws  and  the  sanctions  of 
laws  can  go,  in  obtaining  the  desired  results.  In  saying  this,  I  mean  something 
definite  and  specific.  I  have  already  adverted  to  the  discovery  of  an  exact,  scien- 
tific principle,  capable  of  regulating  the  distribution  of  wealth,  and  introducing 
universal  equity  in  pecuniary  transactions,  —  an  exact  mathematical  gauge  of  hon- 
esty,— which,  when  it  shall  have  imbued  the  public  mind,  and  formed  the  public 
sentiment,  and  come  to  regulate  the  public  conduct,  will  secure  the  products  of  la- 
bor with  impartial  justice  to  all,  and  tend  to  remove  alike  the  temptations  and  the 
provocations  to  crime.  What  that  principle  does  in  the  sphere  of  commerce  is  done 
in  the  social  and  ethical  spheres  by  the  doctrine  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Indivi- 
dual. Both  give  to  each  his  own,  for  it  must  be  continually  remembered  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  demands  that  I  should  sedulously 
and  religiously  respect  your  Individuality,  while  I  vindicate  my  own.  These  two 
ground  principles,  with  a  few  others  incident  thereto,  once  accepted  and  indwell- 
ing in  the  minds  of  men,  and  controlling  their  action,  will  dispense  with  force  and 
forcible  Government.  The  change  which  I  contemplate  in  governmental  affairs 
rests,  therefore,  upon  these  prior  or  concurrent  changes  in  the  commercial,  ethical, 
and  social  spheres.  Statesmen  and  jurists  have  hitherto  dealt  with  effects  instead 
of  causes.  They  have  looked  upon  crime  and  encroachment  of  all  sorts  as  a  fact  to 
be  remedied,  but  never  as  a  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for.     They  have  never 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  27 

gone  back  to  inquire  what  conditions  of  existence  manufactured  the  criminal,  or 
provoked  or  induced  the  encroachment.  A  change  in  this  respect  is  beginning  to 
be  observed,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  present  generation.  The  superiority  of  pre- 
vention over  cure  is  barely  beginning  to  be  admitted,  —  a  reform  in  the  methods 
of  thought  which  is  an  incipient  stage  of  the  revolution  in  question.  The  highest 
type  of  human  society  in  the  existing  social  order  is  found  in  the  parlor.  In  the 
elegant  and  refined  reunions  of  the  aristocratic  classes  there  is  none  of  the  imper- 
tinent interference  of  legislation.  The  Individuality  of  each  is  fully  admitted. 
Intercourse,  therefore,  is  perfectly  free.  Conversation  is  continuous,  brilliant,  and 
varied.  Gronp«!  are  formed  according  to  attraction.  They  are  continuously  broken 
up,  and  rt'-fonned  through  the  operation  of  the  same  subtile  and  all-pervading  in- 
fluence. Mutual  deference  pervades  all  classes,  and  the  most  perfect  harmony, 
ever  yet  attained,  in  complex  human  relations,  prevails  under  precisely  those  cir- 
cumstances which  Legislators  and  Statesmen  dread  as  the  conditions  of  inevitable 
anarchy  and  confusion.  If  there  are  laws  of  etiquette  at  all,  they  are  mere  sug- 
gestions of  principles  admitted  into  and  judged  of  for  himself  or  herself,  by  each 
individual  mind^ 

Is  it  conceivable  that  in  all  the  future  progress  of  humanity,  with  all  the  in- 
numerable elements  of  development  which  the  present  age  is  unfolding,  society 
generally,  and  in  all  its  relations,  will  not  attain  as  high  a  grade  of  perfection  as  cer- 
tain portions  of  society,  in  certain  special  relations,  have  already  attained? 

Suppose  the  intercourse  of  the  parlor  to  be  regulated  by  specific  legislation.  Let 
the  time  which  each  gentleman  shall  be  allowed  to  speak  to  each  lady  be  fixed  by 
law;  the  position  in  which  they  should  sit  or  stand  be  precisely  regulated;  the  sub- 
jects which  they  shall  be  allowed  to  speak  of,  and  the  tone  of  voice  and  accompa- 
nying gestures  with  which  each  may  be  treated,  carefully  defined,  all  under  pretext 
of  preventing  disorder  and  encroachment  upon  each  other's  privileges  and  rights, 
and  can  any  thing  be  conceived  better  calculated  or  more  certain  to  convert  social 
intercourse  into  intolerable  slavery  and  hopeless  confusion? 

It  is  precisely  in  this  manner  that  municipal  legislation  interferes  with  and  pre- 
vents the  natural  organization  of  society.  Mankind  legislate  themselves  into  con- 
fusion by  their  effort  to  escape  it.  Still,  a  state  of  society  may  perhaps  be 
conceived,  so  low  in  social  development  that  even  the  intercourse  of  the  parlor 
could  not  be  prudently  indulged  without  a  rigid  code  of  deportment  and  the  pre- 
sence of  half  a  dozen  bailiffs  to  preserve  order.  I  will  not  deny,  therefore,  that 
Government  in  municipal  affairs  is,  in  like  manner,  a  temporary  neces^;ity  of  un-  i 
developed  so^'iotv.  What  I  affirm  is  that  along  with,  and  precisely  in  proportion 
■to,  the  social  advancement  of  a  people,  that  necessity  ceases,  so  far  as  concerns 
the  first  of  the  causes  of  Government  referred  to, — the  necessity  for  restraining 
encroachments. 

The  second  demand  for  Government  is  to  manage  the  combined  interests  of 


28  The  Science  of  Society. 

society.  But  combined  or  amalgamated  interests  of  all  sorts  are  opposed  to  Indi- 
viduality. The  Individuality  of  interests  should  be  as  absolute  as  that  of  jDersons. 
Hence  the  number  and  extent  of  combined  interests  will  be  reduced  with  every 
step  in  the  genuine  progress  of  mankind.  The  cost  principle  will  furnish  in  its 
operation  the  means  of  conducting  the  largest  human  enterprises,  under  Individual 
guidance  and  control.  It  strips  capital  of  its  iniquitous  privilege  of  oppressing  la- 
bor by  earning  an  income  of  its  own,  in  the  form  of  interest,  and  places  it  freely 
at  the  disposal  of  those  who  will  preserve  and  administer  it  best,  upon  the  sole  con- 
dition of  returning  it  unimpaired,  but  without  augmentation,  at  the  appropriate 
time,  to  its  legitimate  owners. 

A  glance  at  the  functions  which  Government  actually  performs,  and  the  specific 
tendencies  which  society  now  exhibits  iu  relation  to  those  functions,  will  confirm 
the  statement  that  all,  or  most  of,  the  combined  interest's  of  society  will  be  finally 
disintegrated  and  committed  to  individual  hands.  It  is  one  of  the  acknowledged 
functions  of  Government,  until  now,  to  regulate  commerce.  But,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  the  spirit  of  the  age  demands  that  Government  shall  let  commerce 
alone.  In  this  country,  an  important  Bureau  of  the  Executive  Department  of  Gov- 
ernment is  the  Land  Office.  But  the  public  domain  is,  we  have  seen,  already  de- 
manded by  the  people,  and  the  Land  Office  will  have  to  be  dispensed  with.  The 
Army  and  Navy  refer  to  a  state  of  international  relations  of  which  every  thing  be- 
gins to  prognosticate  the  final  extinction.  The  universal  extension  of  commerce 
and  intercommunication,  by  means  of  steam  navigation,  railroads,  and  the  mag- 
netic telegraph,  together  with  the  general  progress  of  enlightenment,  are  rapidly 
obliterating  natural  boundaries,  and  blending  the  human  family  into  one.  The 
cessation  of  war  is  becoming  a  familiar  idea,  and  with  the  cessation  of  war  armies 
and  navies  will  cease  of  course  to  be  required.  It  is  probable  that  even  the  exist- 
ing languages  of  the  earth  will  melt,  within  another  century  or  two,  into  one  com- 
mon and  universal  tongue,  from  the  same  causes,  operating  upon  a  more  extended 
scale,  as  those  which  have  blended  the  dialects  of  the  different  counties  of  England, 
of  the  different  departments  of  France,  and  of  the  kingdoms  of  Spain  into  the  Eng- 
lish, the  French,  and  the  Spanish  languages  respectively.  We  have  premonitions 
of  the  final  disbanding  of  the  armies  and  navies  of  the  world  in  the  substitution 
of  a  citizen  militia,  in  the  growing  unpopularity  of  even  that  ridiculous  shadow  of 
an  army,  the  militia  itself,  and  in  the  substitution  of  the  merchant  steamship  with 
merely  an  incidental  warlike  equipment  instead  of  the  regular  man-of-war.  The 
Navy  and  War  Departments  of  Government  will  thus  be  dispensed  with.  The 
State  Department  now  takes  charge  of  the  intercourse  of  the  nation  with  foreign 
nations.  But  with  the  cessation  of  war  there  will  be  no  foreign  nations,  and  con- 
sequently the  State  or  Foreign  Department  may  in  turn  take  itself  away.  Patriot- 
ism will  expand  into  philanthropy.  Nations,  like  sects,  will  dissolve  into  the 
individuals  who  compose  them.     Every  man  will  be  his  own  nation,  and,  preserving 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government,  29 

» 

his  own  sovereignty  and  respecting  the  sovereignty  of  others,  he  will  be  a  nation  at 
peace  with  all  others.  The  term,  "  a  man  of  the  world,"  reveals  the  fact  that  it  is 
the  cosmopolite  in  manners  and  sentiments  whom  the  world  already  recognizes  as 
the  true  gentleman, — the  type  and  leader  of  civilization.  The  Home  Department 
of  Government  is  a  common  receptacle  of  odds  and  ends,  every  one  of  whose  func- 
tions would  be  better  managed  by  Individual  enterprise,  and  might  take  itself  away 
with  advantage  any  day.  The  Treasui-y  Department  is  merely  a  kind  of  secretory 
gland,  to  provide  the  means  of  carrying  on  the  machinery  of  the  other  Depart- 
ments. When  they  are  removed,  it  will  of  course  have  no  apology  left  for  continu- 
ing to  exist.  Finances  for  administering  Government  wiU  no  longer  be  wanted 
when  there  is  no  longer  any  Government  to  administer.  The  Judiciary  is,  in  fact, 
a  branch  of  the  Executive,  and  faUs  of  course,  as  we  have  seen,  with  the  introduc- 
tion of  principles  which  will  put  an  end  to  aggression  and  crime.  The  Legislature 
enacts  what  the  Executive  and  Judiciary  execute.  If  the  execution  itself  is  unne- 
cessary, the  enactment  of  course  is  no  less  so.  Thus,  piece  by  piece,  we  dispose  of 
the  whole  complicated  fabric  of  Government,  which  looms  up  in  such  gloomy 
grandem-,  overshadowing  the  freedom  of  the  Individual,  impressing  the  minds  of 
men  with  a  false  conviction  of  its  necessity,  as  if  it  were,  like  the  blessed  light  of 
day,  indispensable  to  life  and  happiness. 

There  is  abundant  evidence  to  the  man  of  reflection  that  what  we  have  thus  per- 
formed in  imagination  is  destined  to  be  rapidly  accomplished  in  fact.  There  is, 
perhaps,  no  one  consideration  which  looks  more  directly  to  that  consummation 
than  the  growing  unpopularity  of  politics,  in  every  phase  of  the  subject.  In 
America  this  fact  is  probably  more  obvious  than  anywhere  else.  The  pursuit  of 
politics  is  almost  entirely  abandoned  to  lawyers,  and  generally  it  is  the  career  of 
those  who  are  least  successful  in  that  profession.  The  general  repugnance  of  the 
masses  of  mankind  for  that  class  of  the  community,  by  which  they  testify  an  in- 
stinctive appreciation  of  the  outrage  upon  humanity  committed  by  the  attempt  to 
reduce  the  impertinent  interference  of  legislation  to  a  science,  and  to  practise  it  as 
a  learned  profession,  is  intensified,  in  the  case  of  the  politician,  by  the  element  of 
contempt.  In  the  sham  Democracies,  wherein  majorities  govern,  the  condition  of  the 
office-seeker  and  of  the  office-holder  is  alike  and  peculiarly  unfortunate.  Defeated, 
he  is  consigned  unceremoniously,  by  popular  opinion,  to  the  category  of  the  "  poor 
devil."  Successful,  he  is  denounced  as  a  political  hack.  His  position  is  preemi- 
nently precarious.  Whatever  veneration  attaches  still  to  the  manufacturers  and 
executors  of  law  among  us  is  mostly  traditionary.  So  much  of  the  popular  estima- 
tion of  the  men  whose  business  is  governing  their  fellow-men  as  is  the  indigenous 
growth  of  our  institutions  is  essentially  disrespectful.  The  politician,  in  a  republic, 
is  a  man  whose  business  it  is  to  please  everybody,  and  who,  consequently,  has  no 
personality  of  his  own,  and  this,  here  and  now,  in  a  coimtry  and  age  in  which  dis- 
tinctive personality  is  becoming  the  type  and  model  of  society.     It  is  regarded  to- 


30  The  Science  of  Society. 

day  as  a  misfortune,  in  the  families  of  respectable  tradespeople,  if  a  son  of  any 
promise  has  an  unlucky  turn  for  political  preferment.  Those  who  execute  the  laws 
are  in  little  better  plight  than  those  who  make  them.  Recently,  throughout  most 
of  the  States,  when  changes  have  been  made  in  the  fundamental  law,  the  tenure  of 
office  of  judges  of  all  ranks  has  been  reduced  to  a  short  period  of  from  two  to  four 
years,  and  the  office  rendered  elective.  Such  is  the  fearful  descent  upon  which  the 
dignity  of  powdered  wigs  is  fairly  launched  in  Republican  America,  Judges,  Chan- 
cellors, and  Chief  Justices  entering  the  canvass,  at  short  intervals,  for  returns  to 
the  Bench,  and  shaking  hands  with  greasy  citizens  as  the  price  of  judicial  author- 
ity. It  is  said  that  familiarity  breeds  contempt,  or  that  no  man  is  great  to  his  valet 
de  chamhre.  When  the  inhabitants  of  a  heathen  country  begin  to  treat  their  priests 
and  their  wooden  divinities  with  contemptuous  familiarity,  wise  men  see  that  the 
power  of  Paganism  is  broken,  and  the  Medicine-man,  the  Fetish,  or  the  Juggernaut 
must  soon  give  place  to  some  more  rational  conception  of  the  religious  idea.  At 
the  ratio  of  depreciation  actually  progressing,  office-holding  of  all  sorts,  in  these 
United  States,  from  the  president  down  to  the  constable,  will,  in  a  few  years  more, 
be  ranked  in  the  public  mind  as  positively  disreputable.  In  the  higher  condition 
of  society,  toward  which  mankind  is  unconsciously  advancing,  men  will  shun  all 
responsibility  for  and  arbitrary  control  over  the  conduct  of  others  as  sedulously  as 
during  past  ages  they  have  sought  them  as  the  chief  good.  Washington  declined 
to  be  made  king,  and  the  whole  world  has  not  ceased  to  make  the  welkin  ring  with 
laudations  of  the  disinterested  act.  The  time  wUl  conie  yet  when  the  declinature, 
on  all  hands,  of  every  species  of  governmental  authority  over  others  wUl  not  even 
be  deemed  a  virtue,  but  simply  the  plain  dictate  of  enlightened  self-interest.  The 
sentiment  of  the  poet  will  then  be  recognized  as  an  axiom  of  philosophy, 

Whoever  mounts  the  throne,  —  King,  Priest,  or  Prophet,— 
Man  alike  shall  groan. 

Carlyle  complains,  in  the  bitterness  of  his  heart,  that  the  true  kings  and  gov- 
ernors of  mankind  have  retired  in  disgust  from  the  task  of  governing  the  world, 
and  betaken  themselves  to  the  altogether  private  business  of  governing  themselves. 
Whenever  the  world  at  large  shall  become  as  wise  as  they,  when  all  men  shall  be 
content  to  govern  themselves  merely,  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  "The  True  Con- 
stitution of  Government"  begin  to  be  installed.  Carlyle  has  but  discovered  the 
fact  that  good  men  are  withdrawing  from  politics,  without  penetrating  the  rationale 
of  the  phenomenon.  He  may  call  upon  them  in  vain  till  he  is  hoarse  to  return  to 
the  arena  of  a  contest  which  has  been  waged  for  some  six  thousand  years  or  so, 
with  continuous  defeat,  at  a  time  when  they  are  beginning  to  discover  that  the 
whole  series  of  bloody  conflicts  has  been  fought  with  windmills  instead  of  giants, 
and  that  what  the  world  wants,  in  the  way  of  government,  is  letting  alone. 

But  what  then?     Have  we  arrived  at  the  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  when  we 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  31 

have,  in  imagination,  swept  all  the  actual  forms  of  Government  out  of  existence? 
Is  human  society,  in  its  mature  and  normal  condition,  to  be  a  mere  aggregation  of 
men  and  women,  standing  upon  the  unrelieved  dead  level  of  universal  equality? 
Is  there  to  be  no  homage,  no  rank,  no  honors,  no  transcendent  influence,  no  power, 
in  fine,  exerted  by  any  one  man  over  his  fellow-men?  Will  there  be  nothing  sub- 
stantially corresponding  to,  and  specifically  substituted  for,  what  is  now  known 
among  men  as  Human  Government? 

This  is  the  question  to  which  we  are  finally  conducted  by  the  current  of  our  in- 
vestigations, and  to  this  question  I  conceive  the  answer  to  be  properly  affirmative. 
Had  I  not  believed  so,  there  would  have  been  no  propriety  in  the  title,  "The  True 
Constitution  of  Government,"  under  which  I  announced  this  discourse.  .  It  might 
be  thought  by  some  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  question  that  principles,  and  not  men, 
will  then  constitute  the  Government  of  mankind.  So  vague  a  statement,  however, 
does  not  give  complete  satisfaction  to  the  inquisitive  mind,  nor  does  it  meet  the 
interrogatory  in  all  its  varying  forms.  We  wish  to  know  what  will  be  the  positions, 
relatively  to  each  other,  into  which  men  wiU  be  naturally  thrown  by  the  operation 
of  that  perfect  liberty  which  will  result  from  the  prevalence  and  toleration  of  uni- 
versal Individuality.  We  desire  to  know  this  especially,  now,  with  reference  to 
that  class  of  the  mutual  relations  of  men  which  will  correspond  most  exactly  to 
the  relations  of  the  governors  and  the  governed. 

Negatively,  it  is  certain  that  in  such  a  state  of  society  as  that  which  we  are  now 
contemplating  no  influence  will  be  tolerated,  in  the  place  of  Governnient,  which  is 
maintained  or  exerted  by  force  in  any,  even  the  subtlest,  forms  of  involuntary 
compulsion.  But  there  is  still  a  sense  in  which  men  are  said  to  exert  power,  —  a 
sense  in  which  the  wills  of  the  governor  and  the  governed  concur,  and  blend,  and 
harmonize  with  each  other.  It  is  in  such  a  sense  as  this  that  the  great  orator  is 
said  to  control  the  minds  of  his  auditory,  or  that  some  matchless  queen  of  song 
sways  an  irresistible  influence  over  the  hearts  of  men.  When  mankind  graduate 
out  of  the  period  of  brute  force,  that  man  will  be  the  greatest  hero  and  conqueror 
who  levies  the  heaviest  tribute  of  homage  by  excellence  of  achievement  in  any  de- 
partment of  human  performance.  The  avenues  to  distinction  will  not  be  then,  as 
now,  open  only  to  the  few.  Each  individual  will  truly  govern  the  minds,  and 
hearts,  and  conduct  of  others.  Those  who  have  the  most  power  to  impress  them- 
selves upon  the  community  in  which  they  live  will  govern  in  larger,  and  those  who 
have  less  will  govern  in  smaller  spheres.  All  will  be  priests  and  kings,  serving  at 
the  innumerable  altars  and  sitting  upon  the  thrones  of  that  manifold  hierarchy, 
the  foundations  of  which  God  himself  has  laid  in  the  constitution  of  man.  Genius, 
talent,  industry,  discovery,  the  power  to  please,  every  development  of  Individuality, 
in  fine,  which  meets  the  approbation  of  another,  will  be  freely  recognized  as  the 
divine  anointing  which  constitutes  him  a  sovereign  over  others,  —  a  sovereign  hav- 
ing sovereigns  for  his   subjects,  —  subjects   whose  loyalty  is  proved  and  known. 


32  The  Science  of  Society. 

because  they  are  ever  free  to  transfer  their  fealty  to  other  lords.  With  the  grow- 
ing development  of  Individuality  even  in  this  age,  new  spheres  of  honorable  dis- 
tinction are  continually  evolved.  The  accredited  heroes  of  our  times  are  neither 
politicians  nor  warriors..  It  is  the  discoverers  of  great  principles,  the  projectors  of 
beneficent  designs,  and  the  executors  of  magnificent  undertakings  of  all  sorts  who, 
even  now,  command  the  homage  of  mankind.  While  politics  are  falling  into  de- 
suetude and  contempt,  while  war,  from  being  the  admiration  of  the  world,  is 
rapidly  becoming  its  abhorrence,  the  artist  and  the  artisan  are  rising  into  relative 
importance  and  estimation.  Even  the  undistinguished  workers,  as  they  have 
hitherto  been,  shall  hereafter  hold  seats  as  Cabinet  Ministers  in  the  new  hierarchi- 
cal government,  which  shall  shadow,  in  those  days,  with  its  overspreading  magnifi- 
cence, the  dwellings  of  regenerated  humanity.  In  that  stupendous  administration, 
extending  from  the  greatest  down  to  the  least  things  of  human  concernment,  there 
shall  be  no  lack  of  functionaries  and  no  limit  upon  patronage.  Of  that  social  state, 
which  opens  the  avenues  of  all  honorable  pursuits  to  all,  upon  terms  of  equity  and 
mutual  cooperation,  it  may  be  truly  said,  as  was  said  by  the  Great  Teacher,  when 
speaking  of  another  kingdom,  —  if  indeed  it  be  another,  —  "In  my  Father's  house 
there  are  many  mansions."  The  laudable  ambition  of  all  will  then  be  fully  grati- 
fied. There  will  be  no  defeated  candidates  in  the  political  campaigns  of  that  day. 
Where  the  interests  of  all  are  identical,  even  the  superiority  of  another  is  success, 
and  the  glory  of  another  is  a  personal  triumph. 

A  superficial  observer  might  judge  that  there  was  more  prosperity  and  power  in 
a  petty  principality  of  Germany  than  there  is  in  the  United  States  of  America,  be- 
cause he  sees  more  pomp  and  magnificence  surrounding  the  court  of  a  puppet 
prince,  whom  men  call  the  ruler  of  that  people.  No  one  but  an  equally  superficial 
observer  will  mistake  the  phantom,  called  Government,  which  resides  in  the  Halls 
and  Departments  at  Washington — the  mere  ghost  of  what  such  a  Government  once 
was,  in  its  palmy  days  of  despotism — for  a  nearer  approximation  to  the  true  or- 
ganization of  Government  than  that  natural  arrangement  of  society  which  divides 
and  distributes  the  functions  of  governing  into  ten  thousand  Departments  and 
Bureaus  at  the  homes,  in  the  workshops,  and  at  the  universities  of  the  people. 

If  that  trumpery  Government  be  called  such,  because  it  performs  important  pub- 
lic functions,  then  have  we  distinguished  private  individuals  among  us  who  are 
already  preeminently  more  truly  Governors  than  they.  If  the  concern  at  Washing- 
ton is  legitimately  denominated  a  Government  of  the  people,  because  it  controls 
and  regulates  a  Post  Office  Department,  for  example,  then  are  the  Harndens  and 
Adamses  Governors  too,  for  they  control  and  regulate  a  Package  Express  Depart- 
ment, which  is  a  greater  and  more  difficult  thing.  They  carry  bigger  bundles,  and 
carry  them  farther,  and  deliver  them  with  more  regularity  and  dispatch.  It  is 
stated,  upon  authority  which  T  presume  to  be  reliable,  that  Adams  &  Co.'s  Express 
is  the  most  extensive  organization  of  any  sort  in  the  world,  —  that  it  is,  in  fact,  ab- 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  83 

solutely  world-wide;  and  yet  it  is  strictly  an  individual  concern.  As  an  instance 
of  the  superiority  of  administration  in  the  private  enterprise  over  the  national  com- 
bination, I  was  myself  at  "Washington  during  the  last  winter,  when  the  mails  were 
interrupted  by  the  breaking  up  of  a  raih'oad  bridge  between  Baltimore  and  Phila- 
delphia, and  when,  for  nearly  two  weeks,  the  newspapers  of  the  Commercial 
^letropolis  were  regularly  delayed,  one  whole  day,  on  their  way  to  the  Political 
^Metropolis  of  the  country,  whUe  the  same  papers  came  regularly  and  promptly 
through  every  day  by  the  private  expresses.  The  President,  Members  of  Congress, 
and  Cabinet  Ministers,  even  the  Postmaster  General  himself,  was  regularly  served 
witli  the  news  by  the  enterprise  of  a  private  individual,  who  performed  one  of  the 
functions  of  the  Government,  in  opposition  to  the  Government,  and  better  than  the 
Government,  levying  tribute  upon  the  very  functionary  of  the  Government  who 
was  elected,  consecrated,  and  anointed  for  the  performance  of  that  identical  func- 
tion. Who,  then,  was  the  true  Governor  and  Cabinet  Minister,  the  Postmaster 
General,  who  was  daily  dispatching  messengers  to  rectify  the  irregularity,  and  is- 
suing bulletins  to  explain  and  apologize  for  it,  or  the  Adams  Express  man,  who 
conquered  the  difficulty,  and  served  the  public,  when  the  so-called  Government 
failed  to  do  it?  The  fault  is  that  the  Government  goes  by  rule,  preordained  in  the 
form  of  law,  and  consequently  has  no  capacity  for  adapting  itself  to  the  Individu- 
ality of  an  unforeseen  contingency.  It  has  not  the  Individual  deciding  power  and 
promptitude  of  action  which  are  absolutely  necessary  for  such  occasions. 

It  is  the  actual  performance  of  the  function  which  is  all  that  there  is  good  in  the 
idea  of  Government.  All  that  there  is  besides  that  is  mere  restriction,  and  conse- 
quent annoyance  and  oppression  of  the  public,  as  when  om-  Government  undertook 
to  suppress  those  private  expresses,  which  serve  the  public  better  than  it.  The 
point,  then,  is  this :  I  affirm  that  every  useful  function,  or  nearly  every  one  which 
is  now  performed  by  Government,  and  the  use  of  which  will  remain  in  the  more 
advanced  conditions  of  mankind,  toward  which  the  present  tendencies  of  society 
converge,  can  be  better  performed  by  the  Individual,  self-elected  and  self-author- 
ized, than  by  any  constituted  Government  whatsoever;  and  further,  since  it  is  the 
performance  of  the  function,  and  the  influence  which  the  performance  of  the  func- 
tion exerts  over  the  conduct,  and  to  the  advantage  of  men,  which  makes  the  true 
Governor,  it  follows,  I  affirm,  that  the  Adams  Express  man  was,  in  the  case  I  have 
mentioned,  the  true  Governor,  and  that  the  Postmaster  General,  and  the  whole  in- 
numerable gang  of  Legislators  and  Executors  of  the  law  at  his  back,  were  the  sham 
Governors,  such  as  the  world  is  getting  ready  to  discharge  on  perpetual  furlough. 

It  is  possible  that  there  may  be  a  few  comparatively  unimportant  interests  of 
mankind  which  are  so  essentially  combined  in  their  nature  tliat  some  species  of 
artificial  organization  will  always  be  necessary  for  their  management.  I  do  not, 
for  example,  see  how  the  public  highways  can  be  properly  laid  out  and  adminis- 
tered by  the  private  individual.     Let  us  resort,  then,  to  science  for  the  solution  of 


34  The  Science  of  Society. 

this  anomaly,  for  every  subject  has  its  science,  the  true  social  relations  of  mankind 
as  well  as  all  others.  The  inexorable  natural  law  which  governs  this  subject  is 
this :  that  nature  demands  everywhere  an  individual  lead.  Every  combined  inter- 
est must  therefore  come  ultimately  to  be  governed  by  an  individual  mind,  to  be 
intrusted,  in  other  words,  to  a  despotism.  It  is  the  recognition  of  this  law  which 
is  eml)odied  in  the  political  axiom  that  "power  is  constantly  stealing  from  the 
hands  of  the  many  into  the  hands  of  the  few."  It  is  this  scientific  principle,  lying 
down  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  which  constitutes  both  the  rationale  of  monarchy 
and  its  appropriate  apology.  The  lesson  of  wisdom  to  be  deduced  from  this  prin- 
ciple is  not,  however,  as  our  political  leaders  have  preached  to  us,  that  "  the  price 
of  liberty  is  eternal  vigilance,"  —  a  liberty  which  is  not  worth  possession  if  it  can 
not  be  enjoyed  in  security,  and  a  vigilance  which  is  only  required  to  be  exercised 
in  order  to  defeat  the  legitimate  operation  of  the  most  universal  and  fundamental 
law  of  nature.  The  true  lesson  of  political  wisdom  is  simply  this :  that  no  inter- 
ests should  ever  be  intrusted  to  a  combination  which  are  too  important  to  be 
surrendered  understandingly  and  voluntarily  to  the  guidance  of  a  despotism.  Gov- 
ernment, therefore,  in  the  present  sense  of  the  term,  can  never,  from  the  very 
essential  nature  of  the  case,  be  compatible  with  the  safety  of  the  liberties  of  the 
people,  until  the  sphere  of  its  authority  is  reduced  to  the  very  narrowest  dimen- 
sions,—  never  until  the  arbitrary  institution  of  Government  shall  have  shrunk  into 
a  mere  commission,  —  a  board  of  overseers  of  roads  and  canals,  and  such  other  un- 
important interests  as  experience  shall  prove  can  not  be  so  readily  managed  by  ir- 
responsible individual  action. 

It  is  this  latter  alone  which  will  then  truly  merit  the  imposing  title  of  Govern- 
ment. There  is  a  sense,  as  I  have  said,  in  which  that  term  is  fairly  applicable  to  the 
natural  organization  of  the  interrelations  of  men.  If  Geuin,  or  Leaiy,  or  Knox  de- 
vises a  new  fashion  for  hats,  and  manuf actm-es  hats  in  the  style  so  devised,  and  the 
style  pleases  you  and  me,  and  we  buy  the  hats  and  wear  them,  therein  is  an  example, 
an  humble  example,  perhaps  you  will  think,  but  still  a  genuine  example,  of  true  Gov- 
ernment. The  individual  hatter  is  self-elected  to  his  function.  I,  in  giving  him 
the  preference  over  another,  express  my  conviction  of  his  fitness  for  that  function, 
of  his  superiority  over  others.  I  vote  for  him.  I  give  him  my  suffrage.  I  confirm 
his  election.  The  abstract  statement  of  the  true  order  of  Government,  then,  is  this : 
it  is  that  Government  in  which  the  rulers  elect  themselves,  and  are  voted  for  afterward. 

The  uncouth  and  unscrupulous  despot  proclaims  that  he  governs  mankind  in  his 
own  right,  —  the  right  of  the  strongest.  The  modernized  and  somewhat  civilized 
despot  announces  that  he  governs  by  divine  right;  that  he  is  the  God-appointed 
ruler  of  the  people,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  finds  liimself  a  ruler  at  all.  The 
more  modern  Democratic  Governor  claims  to  rule  by  virtue  of  the  will  of  a  major- 
ity. The  true  Governor  rules  by  virtue  of  all  these  authorizations  combined.  He 
rules  in  his  own  right,  because  he  is  self-elected,  and  exercises  his  function  in  ac- 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  35 

cordance  with  his  own  choice.  He  rules  by  authorization  of  the  majority,  because 
it  is  he  who  receives  the  sujffrages  of  the  largest  number  who  governs  most  exten- 
sively, and,  fiualh',  he,  of  all  men,  can  be  appropriately  said  to  rule  by  divine  right. 
His  own  judgment  of  his  own  fitness  for  his  function,  confirmed  by  the  approval 
of  those  whom  he  desires  to  govern,  are  the  highest  possible  evidence  of  the  divin- 
ity of  his  claim,  of  the  fact,  in  other  words,  that  he  was  created  and  designed  by 
God  himself  for  the  most  perfect  performance  of  that  particular  function. 

AVhat,  then,  society  has  to  do  is  to  remove  the  obstructions  to  this  universal  self- 
election,  by  every  Individual,  of  himself,  to  that  function  which  his  own  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  adaptation  prompts  him  to  believe  to  be  his  peculiar  God-intended 
office  in  life.  Throw  open  the  polls,  make  the  pulpit,  the  school-room,  the  work- 
shop, the  manufactory,  the  shipyard,  and  the  store-house  the  universal  ballot-boxes 
of  the  people.  Make  every  day  an  election  day,  and  every  human  being  both  a  can- 
didate and  a  voter,  exercising  each  day  and  hour  his  full  and  unlimited  franchise. 

In  order  to  this  consummation  two  conditions  are  indispensably  necessary :  the 
first  is  the  cordial  and  universal  acceptance  of  this  very  principle  of  the  absolute 
Sovereignty  of  the  Individual, — each  claiming  his  own  Sovereignty,  and  each  reli- 
giously respecting  that  of  all  others.  The  second  is  the  equitable  interchange  of  the 
products  of  laljor,  measured  by  the  scientific  law  relating  to  that  subject  to  which 
I  have  referred,  and  the  consequent  security  to  each  of  the  full  enjoyment  and  un- 
limited control  of  just  that  portion  of  wealth  which  he  or  she  produces,  the  effect 
of  which  will  be  the  introduction  of  general  comfort  and  security,  the  moderation 
of  avarice,  and  the  supply  of  a  definite  knowledge  of  the  limits  of  rights  and 
encroachments. 

The  instrumentalities  necessary  for  hastening  the  adoption  of  these  principles 
are  likewise,  chiefly,  two:  these  are,  first,  a  more  intense  longing  for  true  and  har- 
monic relations;  and,  secondly,  a  clear  intellectual  conception  of  the  principles 
themselves,  and  of  the  consequences  which  would  flow  from  their  adoption.  The 
first  is  a  highly  religious  aspiration,  the  second  is  a  process  of  scientific  induction. 
One  is  the  soul  and  the  other  the  sensible  body,  the  spiritual  substance  and  the 
corporeal  form,  of  social  harmony.  The  teachings  of  Christianity  have  inspired 
the  one,  the  illumination  of  science  must  provide  the  other.  Intellectual  resources 
brought  to  the  aid  of  Desire  constitute  the. marriage  of  Wisdom  with  Love,  whose 
progeny  is  Happiness. 

When  from  the  lips  of  truth  one  mighty  breath 
Shall,  like  a  whirlwind,  scatter  in  its  breeze 
The  whole  dark  pile  of  human  mockeries, 
Then  shall  the  race  of  mind  commence  on  earth, 
And,  starting  fresh,  as  from  a  second  birth, 
Man,  in  the  sunshine  of  the  world's  new  spring, 
Shall  walk  transparent,  like  some  holy  thing. 


36  The  Science  of  Society. 

It  would,  perhaps,  be  injudicious  to  conclude  this  exhibit  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Individual  Sovereignty,  without  a  more  formal  statement  of  the  scientific  limit 
upon  the  exercise  of  that  Sovereignty  which  the  principle  itself  supplies.  If  the 
principle  were  predicated  of  one  Individual  alone,  the  assertion  of  his  Sovereignty, 
or,  in  other  words,  of  his  absolute  right  to  do  as  he  pleases,  or  to  pursue  his  own 
happiness  in  his  own  way,  would  be  confessedly  to  invest  him  with  the  attributes 
of  despotism  over  others.  But  the  doctrine  which  I  have  endeavored  to  set  forth 
is  not  that.  It  is  the  assertion  of  the  concurrent  Sovereignty  of  all  men,  and  of  all 
women,  and,  within  the  limits  I  am  about  to  state,  of  all  children.  This  concur- 
rence of  Sovereig'nty  necessarily  and  appropriately  limits  the  Sovereignty  of  each. 
Each  is  Sovereign  only  wiihiu  his  own  dominions,  because  he  can  not  extend  the 
exercise  of  his  Sovereignty  beyond  those  limits  without  trenching  upon,  and  inter- 
fering with,  the  prerogatives  of  others,  whose  Sovereignty  the  doctrine  equally 
affirms.  What,  then,  constitutes  the  boundaries  of  one's  own  dominions?  This 
is  a  pregnant  question  for  the  happiness  of  mankind,  and  one  which  has  never, 
until  now,  been  specifically  and  scientifically  asked  or  answered.  The  answer,  if 
correctly  given,  will  fix  the  precise  point  at  which  Sovereignty  ceases  and  encroach- 
ment begins ;  and  that  knowledge,  as  I  have  said,  accepted  into  the  public  mind, 
wiU  do  more  than  laws,  and  the  sanctions  of  laws,  to  regulate  individual  conduct 
and  intercourse.  The  limitation  is  this :  every  Individual  is  the  rightful  Sovereign 
over  his  own  conduct  in  all  things,  whenever,  and  just  so  far  as,  the  consequences 
of  his  conduct  can  be  assumed  by  himself;  or,  rather,  inasmuch  as  no  one  objects 
to  assuming  agreeable  consequences,  whenever,  and  as  far  as,  this  is  true  of  the 
disagreeable  consequences.  For  disagreeable  consequences,  endurance,  or  burden 
of  aU  sorts,  the  term  "Cost"  is  elected  as  a  scientific  technicality.  Hence  the 
exact  formula  of  the  doctrine,  with  its  inherent  limitation,  may  be  stated  thus : 
"  The  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  to  he  exercised  at  his  own  cost." 

This  limitation  of  the  doctrine,  being  inherent,  and  necessarily  involved  in  the 
idea  of  the  Sovereignty  of  all,  may  possibly  be  left  with  safety,  after  the  limitation 
is  understood,  to  implication,  and  the  simple  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  be  as- 
serted as  the  inclusive  formula.  The  limitation  has  never  been  distinctly  and 
clearly  set  forth  in  the  announcements  which  have  been  made  either  of  the  Pro- 
testant or  the  Democratic  creed.  Protestantism  promulgates  the  one  single,  bald, 
unmodified  proposition  that  in  all  matters  of  conscience  the  Individual  judgment 
is  the  sole  tribunal,  from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  As  against  this  there  is  merely 
the  implied  right  in  others  to  resist  when  the  conscience  of  the  Individual  leads 
him  to  attack  or  encroach  upon  them.  It  is  the  same  with  the  Democratic  pre- 
rogative of  the  "pursuit  of  happiness."  The  limitation  has  been  felt  rather  than 
distinctly  and  scientifically  propounded. 

It  results  from  this  analysis  that,  wherever  such  circumstances  exist  that  a  per- 
son can  not  exercise  his  own  Individuality  and  Sovereignty  without  throwing  the 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  37 

"cost,"  or  burden,  of  his  actions  upon  others,  the  principle  has  so  far  to  be  com- 
promised. Such  circumstances  arise  out  of  connected  or  amalgamated  interests, 
and  the  sole  remedy  is  disconnection.  The  exercise  of  Sovereignty  is  the  exercise 
of  the  deciding  power.  Whoever  has  to  bear  the  cost  should  have  the  deciding 
power  in  every  case.  If  one  has  to  bear  the  cost  of  another's  conduct,  and  just  so 
far  as  he  has  to  do  so,  he  should  have  the  deciding  power  over  the  conduct  of  the 
other.  Hence  dependence  and  close  connections  of  interest  demand  continual  con- 
cessions and  compromises.  Hence,  too,  close  connection  and  mutual  dependence 
is  the  legitimate  and  scientific  root  of  Despotism,  as  disconnection  or  Individuali- 
zation of  interests  is  the  root  of  freedom  and  emancipation. 

If  the  close  combination,  which  demands  the  surrender  of  our  will  to  another,  is 
one  instituted  by  nature,  as  in  the  case  of  the  mother  and  the  infant,  then  the 
relation  is  a  true  one,  notwithstanding.  The  surrender  is  based  upon  the  fact  that 
the  child  is  not  yet  strictly  an  Individual.  The  unfolding  of  its  Individuality  is 
gradual,  and  its  growing  development  is  precisely  marked,  by  the  increase  of  its 
ability  to  assume  the  consequences  of  its  own  acts.  If  the  close  combination  of 
interests  is  artificial  or  forced,  then  the  parties  exist  toward  each  other  in  false  rela- 
tions, and  to  false  relations  no  true  principle  can  apply.  Consequently,  in  such 
relations,  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  must  be  abandoned.  The  law  of  such 
relations  is  collision  and  conflict,  to  escape  which,  while  remaining  in  the  relations 
there  is  no  other  means  but  mutual  concessions  and  surrenders  of  the  selfhood. 
Hence,  inasmuch  as  the  interests  of  mankind  have  never  yet  been  scientifically 
individualized  by  the  operations  of  an  equitable  commerce,  and  the  limits  of  en- 
croachment never  scientifically  defined,  the  axioms  of  morality,  and  even  the  pro- 
visions of  positive  legislation,  have  been  doubtless  appropriate  adaptations  to  the 
ages  of  false  social  relations  to  which  they  have  been  applied,  as  the  cataplasm  or 
the  sinapism  may  be  for  disordered  conditions  of  the  human  system.  We  must 
not,  however,  reason,  in  either  case,  from  that  temporary  adaptation  in  a  state  of 
disease  to  the  healthy  condition  of  society  or  the  Individual.  Much  that  is  rela- 
tively good  is  only  good  as  a  necessity  growing  out  of  evil.  The  greater  good  is 
the  removal  of  the  evil  altogether.  The  almshouse  and  the  foundling  hospital 
may  be  necessary  and  laudable  charities,  but  they  can  only  be  regarded  by  the  en- 
lightened philanthropist  as  the  stinking  apothecary's  salve,  or  the  dead  flies,  applied 
to  the  bruises  and  sores  of  the  body  politic.  Admitted  temporary  necessities, 
they  are  offensive  to  the  nostrils  of  good  taste.  The  same  reflection  is  applicable 
to  every  species  of  charity.  The  oppressed  classes  do  not  want  charity,  but  jus- 
tice, and  with  simple  justice  the  necessity  for  charity  will  disappear  or  be  reduced 
to  a  minimum.  So  in  the  matter  before  us.  The  disposition  to  forego  one's  own 
pleasures  to  secure  the  happiness  of  others  is  a  positive  virtue  in  all  those  close 
connections  of  interest  which  render  such  a  sacrifice  necessary,  and  inasmuch  as 
such  have  hitherto  always  been  the  circumstances  of  the  Individual  in  society,  this 


38  The  Science  of  Society. 

abnegation  of  selfhood  is  the  highest  virtue  which  the  world  has  hitherto  con- 
ceived. But  these  close  connections  of  interest  are  themselves  wrong,  for  the  very 
reason  that  they  demand  this  sacrifice  and  surrender  of  what  ought  to  be  enjoyed 
and  developed  to  the  highest  extent.  The  truest  and  the  highest  vhtue,  in  the 
true  relations  of  men,  will  be  the  fullest  unfolding  of  all  the  Individualities  of 
each,  and  the  truest  relations  of  men  are  those  which  permit  that  unfolding  of  the 
Individualities  of  each,  not  only  without  collision  or  injury  to  any,  but  with  mu- 
tual advantage  to  all, — the  reconciliation  of  the  Individual  and  the  interests  of 
the  Individual  with  society  and  the  interests  of  society,  —  that  composite  harmony, 
or,  if  you  will,  unity,  of  the  whole,  which  results  from  the  discrete  unity  and  dis- 
tinctive Individuality  of  each  particular  monad  in  the  complex  natural  organiza- 
tion of  society. 

The  doctrine  of  Individuality,  and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  involves, 
then,  at  this  point,  two  of  the  most  important  scientific  consequences,  the  one  serv- 
ing as  a  guiding  principle  to  the  true  solution  of  existing  evils  in  society,  and  to 
the  exodus  out  of  the  prevailing  confusion,  and  the  other  as  a  guiding  principle 
of  deportment  in  existing  society,  while  those  evils  remain.  The  first  is  that  the 
Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  or,  in  other  words,  absolute  personal  liberty,  can 
only  be  enjoyed  along  with  the  entire  disintegration  of  combined  or  amalgamated 
interests;  and  here  the  "cost  principle"  comes  in  to  point  out  how  that  disintegra- 
tion can  and  must  take  place,  not  as  isolation,  but  along  with,  and  absolutely  pro- 
ductive of  the  utmost  conceivable  harmony  and  cooperation.  The  second  is  that, 
while  people  are  forced,  by  the  existing  conditions  of  society,  to  remain  in  the 
close  connections  resulting  from  amalgamated  interests,  there  is  no  alternative  but 
compromise  and  mutual  concession,  or  an  absolute  surrender  upon  one  side  or  the 
other.  The  innate  Individualities  of  persons  are  such  that  every  calculation  based 
upon  the  identity  of  tastes,  or  opinions,  or  beliefs,  or  judgments,  of  even  so  many 
as  two  persons,  is  absolutely  certain  to  be  defeated,  and  as  Nature  demands  an  In- 
dividuality of  lead,  one  must  necessarily  surrender  to  the  other  whenever  the  rela- 
tion demands  an  identity  of  action.  To  quarrel  with  that  necessity  is  a  folly.  To 
deny  its  existence  is  a  delusion.  To  enter  such  combinations  with  the  expectation 
that  liberty  and  Individuality  can  be  enjoyed  in  them  is  a  sore  aggravation  of  the 
evil.  Mutual  recrimination  is  added  to  the  inevitable  annoyance  of  mutual  restric- 
tion. Hence  a  right  understanding  of  the  scientific  conditions  under  which  alone 
Individuality  can  be  indulged,  a  clear  and  intelligent  perception  of  the  fact  that 
the  collisions  and  mutual  contraventions  of  the  combined  relation  result  from  no- 
thing wrong  in  the  associated  Individuals,  but  from  the  wrong  of  the  relation  itself, 
goes  far  to  introduce  the  spirit  of  mutual  forbearance  and  toleration,  and  thus  to 
soften  the  acrimony  and  alleviate  the  burden  of  the  present  imperfect  and  unscien- 
tific institutions  of  society. 

Hence,  again,  as  self-sacrifice  and  denial  to  one's  self  of  one's  own  abstract  rights 


The  True   Constitution  of  Government.  39 

is  an  absolute  necessity  of  the  existing  order  of  things,  there  is  a  mutual  necessity 
that  we  claim  that  of  each  other,  and,  if  need  be,  that  we  enforce  the  claim.  Herein 
Lies  the  apology  for  our  existing  Governments,  and  for  force  as  a  temporary  neces- 
sity, and  hence  the  doctrine  of  Individuality,  and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Indi- 
vidual, while  the  most  ultra-radical  doctrine  in  theory  and  final  purpose  ever 
promulgated  in  the  world,  is  at  the  same  time  eminently  conservative  in  immediate 
practice.  While  it  teaches,  in  principle,  the  prospective  disruption  of  nearly  every 
existing  institution,  it  teaches  concurrently,  as  matter  of  expediency,  a  patient  and 
philosophical  endurance  of  the  evils  around  us,  wliile  we  labor  assiduously  for  their 
removal.  So  inr  from  quorrcling  with  existing  (xovernHient,  when  it  is  put  upon 
the  footing  of  temporary  expediency',  as  distinguished  from  abstract  principle  and 
final  purpose,  it  sanctions  and  confirms  it.  It  has  no  sympathies  with  aimless  and 
fruitless  struggles,  the  recrimination  of  diiferent  classes  in  society,  nor  with  merely 
anarchical  and  destructive  onslaughts  upon  existing  institutions.  It  proposes  no 
abrupt  and  sudden  shock  to  existing  society.  It  points  to  a  scientific,  gradual, 
and  perfectly  peaceable  substitution  of  new  and  harmonious  relations  for  those 
which  are  confessedly  beset,  to  use  the  mildest  expression,  by  the  most  dis- 
tressing embarrassments. 

I  will  conclude  by  warning  you  against  one  other  misconception,  which  is  very 
liable  to  be  entertained  by  those  to  whom  Individuality  is  for  the  first  time  pre- 
sented as  the  great  remedy  for  the  prevalent  evils  of  the  social  state.  I  mean  the 
conception  that  Individuality  has  something  in  common  with  isolation,  or  the  se- 
verance of  all  personal  relations  with  one's  fellow-men.  Those  who  entertain  this 
idea  will  object  to  it,  because  they  desire,  as  they  will  say,  cooperation  and  brother- 
hood. That  objection  is  conclusive  proof  that  they  have  not  rightly  comprehended 
the  nature  of  Individuality,  or  else  they  would  have  seen  that  it  is  through  the  In- 
dividualization of  interests  alone  that  harmonic  cooperation  and  universal  brother- 
hood can  be  attained.  It  is  not  the  disruption  of  relationships,  but  the  creation 
of  distinct  and  independent  personalities  between  whom  relations  can  exist.  The 
more  distiuct  the  personalities,  and  the  more  cautiously  they  are  guarded  and  pre- 
served, the  more  intimate  the  relations  may  be,  without  collision  or  disturbance. 
Persons  may  be  completely  individualized  in  their  interests  who  are  in  the  most 
immediate  personal  contact,  as  in  the  case  of  the  lodgers  at  an  hotel,  or  they  may 
have  combined  or  amalgamated  interests,  and  be  remote  from  each  other,  as  in  the 
case  of  partners  residing  in  different  coimtries.  The  players  at  shuttlecock  co- 
operate in  friendly  competition  with  each  other,  while  facing  and  opposing  each 
other,  each  fully  directing  his  own  movements,  which  they  could  not  do  if  their 
arms  and  legs  were  tied  together,  nor  even  if  they  stood  side  by  side.  The  game 
of  life  is  one  which  demands  the  same  freedom  of  movement  on  the  part  of  every 
player,  and  every  attempt  to  procure  harmonious  cooperation  by  fastening  different 
individuals  in  the  same  position  will  defeat  its  own  object. 


40  The  Science  of  Society. 

In  opposing  combinations  or  amalgamated  interests,  Individuality  does  not  op- 
pose, but  favors  and  conducts  toward  cooperation.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Tudi- 
viduality  alone  is  not  sufficient  to  insui'e  cooperation.  It  is  an  essential  element 
of  cooperative  harmony,  but  not  the  only  one.  It  is  one  principle  in  the  science 
of  society,  but  it  is  not  the  whole  of  that  science.  Other  elements  are  indispensable 
to  the  right  working  of  the  system,  one  of  which  has  been  adverted  to.  The  error 
has  been  in  supposing  that,  because  the  Individuality  which  is  already  realized  in 
society  has  not  ultimated  in  harmony,  that  Individuality  itself  is  in  fault.  Instead 
of  destroying  this  one  true  element  of  order,  and  returning  to  a  worse  condition 
from  which  we  have  emerged,  the  scientific  method  is  to  investigate  fm-ther,  and 
find  what  other  or  complementary  principles  are  necessaiy  to  complete  the  well- 
working  of  the  social  machinery. 

Regretting  that  the  whole  circle  of  the  new  principles  of  society,  of  which  the 
Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  is  one,  can  not  be  presented  at  once,  I  invite  you, 
Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  as  occasion  may  offer,  to  inform  yourselves  of  what  they 
are,  that  you  may  see  the  subject  in  its  entire  connection  of  parts.  In  the  mean 
time  I  submit  to  your  criticism,  and  the  criticism  of  the  world,  what  I  have  now 
offered,  with  the  undoubting  conviction  that  it  wiU  endure  the  ordeal  of  the  most 
searching  investigation,  and  with  the  hope  that,  however  it  may  shock  the  pre- 
judices of  earlier  education,  you  will  in  the  end  sanction  and  approve  it,  and  aid,  by 
your  devoted  exertions,  the  inauguration  of  The  True  Constitution  of  Grovemment, 
with  its  foundations  laid  in  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual. 


THE  SCIENCE  OF  SOCIETY. 

No.   3. 

COST  THE  LIMIT  OF  PRICE: 

A  SCIENTIFIC  MEASURE  OF  HONESTY  IN  TRADE 

AS  ONE   OF  THE 

FUNDAMENTAL   PRINCIPLES   IN   THE    SOLUTION 
OF  THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM. 


PREFACE. 


The  preface  of  a  book  is  always  the  last  thing  written,  and  generally  the  last  thing  read. 
The  author  is  safe,  therefore,  in  assuming  that  he  is  addressing,  in  what  he  says  in  this  part 
of  his  work,  those  who  are  already  familiar  with  the  hook  itself.  Availing  myself  of  this 
presumption,  I  have  a  few  observations  to  make  of  a  somewhat  practical  nature  in  relation  to 
the  effects  upon  the  conduct  of  the  Individual  which  the  acceptance  of  the  principle  herein 
inculcated  should  appropriately  have. 

At  the  first  blush  it  seems  as  if  the  Cost  Principle  presented  the  most  stringent  and  inexor- 
able law,  binding  upon  the  conscience,  which  was  ever  announced,  —  as  if  no  man  desiring 
to  be  honest  could  continue  for  a  day  in  the  ordinary  intercourse  of  trade  and  pursuit  of 
profit.  The  degree  to  which  this  impression  will  remain  with  different  persons,  upon  a 
thorough  understanding  of  the  whole  subject,  will  be  different  according  to  their  organiza- 
tions. There  are  powerful  considerations,  however,  to  deter  any  one  from  making  a  martyr 
of  himself  in  a  fruitless  effort  to  act  upon  the  true  principle  while  living  in  the  atmosphere, 
and  surrounded  by  the  conditions,  of  the  old  and  false  system. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  impossible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  to  apply  a  principle,  the  essence 
of  which  is  to  regulate  the  terms  of  reciprocity,  where  no  reciprocity  exists.  The  Equitist 
who  should  attempt  to  act  upon  the  Cost  Principle  in  the  midst  of  the  prevailing  system,  and 
should  sell  his  own  products  with  scrupulous  conscientiousness  at  cost,  would  be  wholly  un- 
able to  obtain  the  products  of  others  at  cost  in  return ;  and  hence  his  conduct  would  not 
procure  Equity.  He  would  at  most  obtain  the  wretched  gratification  of  cheating  himself 
knowingly  and  continuously.  There  is  not  space  in  the  few  pages  of  a  preface  to  enter  into 
a  fundamental  statement  of  the  ethical  principles  involved  in  the  temporary  continuance  in 
relations  of  injustice  forced  upon  us  by  those  upon  whom  whatever  of  injustice  we  commit  is  in- 
flicted. The  question  involved  is  the  same  as  that  of  War  and  Peace.  A  nation  desirous  of  be- 
ing at  peace  with  all  mankind,  and  tendering  such  relations  to  the  world,  may,  nevertheless, 
be  forced  into  war  by  the  wanton  acts  of  unscrupulous  neighbors.     Notwithstanding  the  over- 


44  The  Science  of  Society. 

strained  nicety  of  the  sect  called  Friends,  and  of  non-resistants  in  such  behalf,  the  common 
sentiment  of  enlightened  humanity  is  yet  in  favor  of  resistance  against  unprovoked  aggres- 
sion, while  it  is  at  the  same  time  in  favor  of  Universal  Peace,  —  the  entire  cessation  of  all 
War.  In  like  manner,  the  friends  of  Equity,  the  acceptors  of  the  cost  principle,  do  not  in  any 
case,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  purpose  beggaring  themselves,  or  abandoning  any  positions  which 
give  them  the  pecuniary  advantage  in  the  existing  disharmonic  relations  of  society,  from  any 
silly  or  overweening  deference  even  for  their  own  principles.  They  entertain  rational  and 
well-considered  views  in  relation  to  the  appropriate  means  of  inaugurating  the  reign  of 
Equity.  They  propose  the  organization  of  villages  or  settlements  of  persons  who  understand 
the  principle,  and  desire  to  act  upon  it  mutually.  They  will  tender  intercourse  with  "out- 
siders" upon  the  same  terms;  but,  if  the  tender  is  not  accepted,  they  will  then  treat  with 
them  upon  their  own  terms,  so  far  as  it  is  necessary,  or  in  their  judgment  best,  to  treat  with 
them  at  all.  They  will  hold  Equity  in  one  hand  and  "tight "  in  the  other,  — Equity  for  those 
who  will  accept  Equity  and  reciprocate  it,  and  the  conflict  of  wits  for  those  who  force  that 
issue.  It  is  not  their  design  to  become  either  martyrs  or  dupes ;  martyrdom  being,  in  their 
opinion,  unnecessary,  and  the  other  alternative  adverse  to  their  tastes. 

Still  any  view  of  the  practical  methods  of  working  out  the  principle  which  may  be  here  in- 
timated is  of  course  binding  upon  no  one.  I  state  the  spirit  in  which  the  principle  is  at  pre- 
sent entertained,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  those  who  have  accepted  it.  Every  individual  must^ 
be  left  free,  whether  as  an  inhabitant  of  the  world  at  large,  or  of  an  equitable  village,  to  act: 
under  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience,  his  own  views  of  expediency,  his  own  sense  of  what 
he  can  afford  to  sacrifice  in  order  to  abide  by  the  principle  rather  than  sacrifice  the  principle 
instead ;  or,  in  fine,  of  whatever  other  regulating  influence  he  is  in  the  habit  of  submitting 
his  conduct  to.  He  must  be  left  absolutely  free,  then,  to  commit  every  conceivable  breacA" 
of  the  principle  itself,  since  absolute  freedom  is  another  of  the  essential  principles  of  harmo- 
nic society.  He  who  is  in  no  freedom  to  do  wrong  can  never,  by  any  i)ossibility,  demonstrate 
the  disposition  to  do  right ;  besides,  whether  the  absolute  or  theoretical  right  is  always  the 
practical  or  relative  right,  is  at  least  a  doubtful  question  in  morals,  which  each  individual 
must  be  allowed  to  judge  of  solely  for  himself,  —  as  of  every  other  question  of  morals  and 
personal  conduct  whatsoever, — assuming  the  Cost.  Hence,  even  in  the  act  of  infringing 
one  of  our  circle  of  principles,  the  individual  is  vindicating  another,  —  the  Sovereignty  of 
THE  iNDivrDUAL,  —  and  in  the  fact  of  his  differing  from  another,  from  the  majority,  or  from 
all  others,  in  the  moral  character  of  an  act,  he  is  merely  illustrating  another  of  the  same  cir- 
cle of  principles, — namely,  Individualitt. 

It  is  found  to  be  the  most  puzzling  of  all  things  to  those  who  commence  to  examine  these 
principles,  beset  as  they  are  by  the  fogs  of  old  ideas,  that  a  social  reorganization  should  be 
proposed  without  any  social  compact,  the  necessity  of  which  has  been  alike  and  universally 
conceded  both  by  Conservatives  and  Reformers.  An  illustration  may  render  the  matter  clear. 
We  do  not  bring  forward  a  System,  a  Plan,  or  a  Constitution,  to  be  voted  on,  adopted,  or 
agreed  to,  by  mankind  at  large,  or  by  any  set  of  men  whatsoever.  Nothing  of  the  sort ! 
We  point  out  certain  principles  in  the  nature  of  things  which  relate  to  the  order  of  human 
society;  in  conforming  to  which  mankind  will  find  their  affairs  harmonically  adjusted,  and 
in  departing  from  which  they  wiU  run  into  confusion.  The  knowledge  of  these  principles  is 
science.  It  is  the  same  with  them  as  with  the  principles  of  Physiology.  We  teach  them  as 
science.  We  do  not  ask  that  they  shall  be  voted  upon  or  applied  under  pledges.  Man  cannot 
make  or  unmake  them.  So  far  as  he  knows  them,  and  cordially  accepts  them  as  truths,  he  will 
be  disposed  to  realize  them  in  act.  The  human  mind  has  a  natural  appetency  for  truth.  If 
there  are  obstacles  in  the  way  of  their  realization,  those  obstacles  will  differ  with  the  circum- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  45 

stances  of  each  individual,  and  the  Individual  can  alone  judge  of  them.  Those  circumstances 
may  change  tomorrow,  and  then  his  capacity  to  act  will  change.  His  own  appreciation  of 
the  subject  may  change  likewise.  There  is  Individuality  therefore  in  his  own  different  states 
at  different  periods.  The  man  must  be  bound  by  no  pledges  which  imply  even  so  much  as 
that  he  will  be  himself  the  same,  in  any  given  respect,  at  any  future  moment  of  time.  It  is 
the  evil  of  compacts  that  the  compact  becomes  sacred  and  the  individual  profane,  —  that  man 
is  held  to  be  made  for  the  Sabbath  and  not  the  Sabbath  for  man. 

Hereupon  there  is  based  the  claim  that  these  principles  constitute  in  the  appropriate  and 
rigid  sense  the  Science  of  Society.  It  is  the  property  of  science  that  it  does  not  say  "  By 
your  leave."  It  exists  whether  you  will  or  no.  It  requires  neither  compacts,  constitutions, 
nor  ballot-boxes.  It  is  objectively  true.  It  exists  in  principles  and  truths.  If  j'ou  under- 
stand and  conform,  well ;  if  not,  woe  be  unto  you.  The  consequences  will  fall  upon  you  and 
scourge  you.  Hence  the  government  of  consequences  is  itseK  scientific,  which  no  man-made 
government  is.  Men  have  sought  for  ages  to  discover  the  science  of  government ;  and  lo ! 
here  it  is,  that  men  cease  totally  to  attempt  to  govern  each  other  at  all!  that  they  learn  to 
know  the  consequences  of  their  oicn  acts,  and  that  they  arrange  their  relations  with  each 
other  upon  such  a  basis  of  science  that  the  disagreeable  consequences  shall  be  assumed  by  the 
agent  himself. 


R 


46  The  Science  of  Society. 


THE  COST  PRINCIPLE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PKELIMINARY.  —  THE  NATURE  AND  NECESSITY  OF  A  SOCIAL  SCIENCE. 

1.  The  question  of  the  proper,  legitimate,  and  just  reward  of  labor,  and  other 
kindred  questions,  are  becoming  confessedly  of  immense  importance  to  the  welfare 
of  mankind.  They  demand  radical,  thorough,  and  scientific  investigation.  Poli- 
tical Economy,  which  has  held,  its  position  for  the  last  half  century  as  one  of  the 
accredited  sciences,  is  found  in  our  day  to  have  but  a  partial  and  imperfect  appli- 
cation to  matters  really  involved  in  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth.  Its 
failure  is  in  the  fact  that  it  treats  wealth  as  if  it  were  an  abstract  thing  having  inter- 
ests of  its  o^vn,  apart  from  the  well-being  of  the  laborers  who  produce  it.  In  other 
words,  human  beings,  their  interests  and  happiness,  are  regarded  by  Political  Eco- 
nomy in  no  other  point  of  view  than  as  mere  instruments  iu  the  production  or  ser- 
vice of  this  abstract  Wealth.  It  does  not  inquire  in  what  manner  and  upon  what 
principles  the  accumulation  and  dispensation  of  wealth  should  he  conducted  in  order 
to  eventuate  in  the  greatest  amount  of  human  comfort  and  happiness,  and  the  most 
complete  development  of  the  individual  man  and  woman.  It  simply  concerns  it- 
self with  the  manner  iu  which,  and  the  principles  in  accordance  with  which,  men 
and  women  are  now  employed,  in  producing  and  exchanging  wealth.  It  is  as  if  the 
whole  purposes,  arrangements,  and  order  of  a  vast  palace  were  viewed  as  mere  ap- 
pendages to  the  kitchen,  or  contrivances  for  the  convenience  of  the  servants,  instead 
of  viewing  both  kitchen  and  servants  as  subordinate  parts  of  the  system  of  life, 
gayety,  luxury,  and  happiness  which  should  appropriately  inhabit  the  edifice,  ac- 
cording to  the  design  of  its  projectors. 

2.  Hence  Political  Economy  is  beginning  to  fall  into  disrepute  as  a  science  (for 
want  of  a  more  extended  scope  and  a  more  humanitarian  purpose),  and  is  liable  even 
to  lose  credit  for  the  good  it  has  done.  The  questions  with  which  it  deals  can  no 
longer  be  regarded  as  an  integral  statement  of  the  subject  to  which  they  relate. 
They  are  coming  to  be  justly  estimated  as  a  part  only  of  a  broader  field  of  scienti- 
fic investigation  which  has  but  recently  been  entered  upon;  and  as  being  incapable 
of  a  true  solution  apart  from  their  legitimate  connections  with  the  whole  system 
of  the  social  affairs  of  mankind.  The  subject-matter  of  Political  Economy  will, 
therefore,  be  hereafter  embraced  in  a  more  comprehensive  Social  Science,  which 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  47 

will  treat  of  all  the  interests  of  man  growing  out  of  their  interrelations  with  each 
other. 

3.  A  criticism  sonaewhat  similar  to  that  here  bestowed  upon  Political  Economy 
is  applicable  to  Ethics.  It  has  been  the  function  of  writers  and  preachers  upon 
Morals,  hitherto,  to  inculcate  the  duty  of  submitting  to  the  exigencies  of  false  so- 
cial relations.  The  Science  of  Society  teaches,  on  the  other  hand,  the  rectification 
of  those  relations  themselves.  So  long  as  men  find  themselves  embarrassed  by  com- 
plicated connections  of  iuterest,  so  that  the  consequences  of  their  acts  inevitably 
devolve  upon  others,  the  highest  virtue  consists  in  mutual  concessions  and  abnega- 
tion of  selfhood.  Hence  the  necessity  for  Ethics,  va.  that  stage  of  progress,  to  en- 
force the  reluctant  sacrifice,  by  stringent  appeals  to  the  conscience.  The  truest 
condition  of  society,  however,  is  that  in  which  each  individual  is  enabled  and  con- 
strained to  assume,  to  the  greatest  extent  possible,  the  Cost  or  disagreeable  conse- 
quences of  his  own  acts.  That  condition  of  society  can  only  arise  from  a  general 
disintegration  of  interests, — from  rendering  the  interests  of  all  as  completely  indi- 
vidual as  their  persons.  The  Science  of  Society  teaches  the  means  of  that  indivi- 
dualization of  interests,  coupled,  however,  with  cooperation.  Hence  it  graduates 
the  individual,  so  to  speak,  out  of  the  sphere  of  Ethics  into  that  of  Personality, — 
out  of  the  sphere  of  duty  or  submission  to  the  wants  of  others,  into  the  sphere  of 
integral  development  and  freedom.  Hence  the  Science  of  Society  may  be  said  to 
absorb  the  Science  of  Ethics  as  it  does  that  of  Political  Economy,  while  it  teaches 
far  more  exactly  the  limits  of  right  by  defining  the  true  relations  of  men.  (30,  37) 

4.  The  Science  of  Society  labors  indeed  under  a  serious  embarrassment  from 
the  fact  of  its  comprehensiveness.  The  changes  which  the  realization  of  the  prin- 
ciples it  unfolds  would  bring  about  in  the  cu'cumstances  of  society  make  it  differ 
from  matters  of  ordinary  science,  in  the  fact  of  its  immediate  and  complicated  ef- 
fects upon  what  may  be  termed  the  vested  interests  of  the  community.  It  is  diffi- 
cult for  men  to  regard  that  as  purely  a  question  of  science  which  they  foresee  is  a 
radical  reform  and  revolution  as  well.  Still  there  are  few  persons  who  do  not  re- 
cognize the  fact  that  there  is  some  subtle  and  undiscovered  cause  of  manifold  evils, 
lying  hid  down  in  the  very  foundations  of  our  existing  social  fabric,  and  which  it 
is  extremely  desirable  should  be  eradicated  by  some  means,  however  much  they 
may  differ  with  reference  to  the  instrumentalities  through  which  the  amelioration 
is  to  be  sought  for.  The  demand  for  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  subject,  and 
a  settlement  upon  true  principles  of  the  relations  of  labor  and  capital  especially, 
has  come  up  during  the  last  few  years  with  more  prominence  than  ever  before,  both 
in  Europe  and  America,  and  has  given  rise  to  the  various  forms  of  Socialism  which 
are  now  agitating  the  whole  world.  The  real  significance  and  tendency  of  Social- 
ism are  stated  in  No.  1  of  this  series  of  publications,  entitled,  "The  True  Con- 
stitution of  Government,  in  the  Sovei-eignty  of  the  Individual,  as  the  Final 
Development  of  Protestantism,  Democracy,  and  Socialism." 


^ 


48  The  Science  of  Society. 

5.  Indeed,  the  inquiry  into  social  evils  and  remedies  has  not  been  generally 
viewed  in  the  light  of  a  science  at  all,  and  Reform  of  all  sorts  has  become  distaste- 
ful to  many  among  the  more  intellectual  portion  of  the  community,  for  the  reason 
that  it  has  not  hitherto  assumed  a  more  strictly  scientific  aspect.  Neither  quer- 
ulous complaints  of  the  present  condition  of  thmgs,  nor  brilliant  picturings  of  the 
imao'ination,  nor  vague  aspirations  after  change  or  perfection,  satisfy  those  whose 
mental  constitution  demands  definite  and  tangible  propositions,  and  inevitable  lo- 
gical deductions  from  premises  first  admitted  or  established. 

6.  There  is  another  portion  of  the  community  who  object  to  the  investigation  of 
all  social  questions  upon  nearly  opposite  grounds.  They  assume  that  the  moral 
and  social  regeneration  of  mankind  is  not  the  sphere  of  science,  but  exclusively 
that  of  religion, — that  the  only  admissible  method  of  societary  advancement  is  by 
the  infusion  of  the  religious  sentiment  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and  the  rectification 
thereby  of  the  affections  of  the  individual,  and  through  individuals  of  mankind  at 
large. 

7.  If  this  proposition  be  reduced  to  this  statement,  —  that,  if  the  spirit  of  every 
individual  in  a  community  is  right,  the  spirit  of  that  community,  as  an  aggregate, 
must  be  right  likewise, — the  assertion  is  a  simple  truism;  but  society  demands  a 
form  as  well  as  a  substance,  a  body  no  less  than  a  soul ;  and  if  that  form  or  body 
be  not  a  true  outgrowth  and  exponent  of  the  spirit  dwelling  within,  it  is  affirming 
too  much  to  say  that  such  a  society  is  rightly  constituted.  It  is  the  province  of 
science  or  the  intellect  to  provide  the  form  in  which  any  desire  is  to  be  actualized. 
What  Substance  is  to  Form,  the  Love  or  Desire  is  to  the  intellectual  conception  of 
the  modes  of  its  realization.  Religion  deals  wdth  the  heart  or  affections;  in  other 
words,  with  the  love  or  desire,  which  makes  up  the  substance  or  inherent  constitu- 
ent quality  of  actions.  Science  which  is  born  of  Wisdom  deals  with  the  Forms  of 
action,  and  teaches  that  such  and  such  only  accord  with  a  given  Desire  and  will 
eventuate  in  its  realization.     The  development  of  the  Love  or  Desire  is  first  in 

•  order  and  first  in  rank ;  that  of  the  corresponding  Wisdom  is  nevertheless  equally 
indispensable  to  the  completeness  of  all  that  is  good  and  true,  in  every  department 
of  rational  being. 

8.  To  illustrate,  let  us  suppose  a  nation  overrun  by  foreign  armies,  and  its  very 
existence  as  an  independent  people  threatened,  while  merely  a  feeble,  heartless, 
and  unorganized  resistance  is  offered.  A  few  patriotic  and  wise  men  assemble  to 
consult  upon  the  prospects  and  the  necessities  of  their  country.  Immediately  a 
dissension  divides  them  in  regard  to  the  cause  of  their  repeated  failures  to  arrest 
the  progress  of  the  enemy.  One  party  asserts  that  it  is  a  want  of  military  skill, 
that  their  country  is  entirely  destitute  of  the  knowledge  of  tactics  and  castrameta- 
tion,  which,  if  understood,  would  be  amply  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  display  their 
whole  strength,  and  to  make  the  most  desperate  and  successful  defence.  The  other 
party  assumes  opposite  ground.     They  affirm  that  the  fault  is  a  want  of  patriotism 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  49 

among  the  people.  They  cite  abundant  instances  to  prove  that  the  inhabitants 
care  very  little  by  whom  they  are  governed ;  that  they  are,  in  fine,  destitute  of  that 
spirit  of  devotion  which  is  the  essence  or  substance  of  warlike  prowess.  Thus  di- 
vided in  views,  and  jealous  upon  either  side,  they  waste  their  time  and  grow  mu- 
tuall}'  embittered  toward  each  other.  At  length,  after  tedious  discussions  and  a 
long  series  of  acrimonious  recriminations,  they  arrive  at  the  solution  in  the  fact 
that  both  parties  ai-e  right.  The  people  are  both  destitute  of  patriotic  devotion 
iiud  of  military  science.  Which,  then,  is  the  first  want,  in  order,  to  be  supplied? 
Clearly  the  former.  Still  both  are  equally  essential  to  the  organization  of  a  com- 
plete defence.  Having  accorded  in  this  view,  they  first  disperse  themselves  as  mis- 
sionaries over  the  whole  country,  preaching  patriotism.  By  exciting  appeals  they 
arouse  the  dormant  affections  of  the  people  for  their  fatherland,  and  alarm  them 
for  the  safety  of  their  wives  and  little  ones.  Their  efforts  are  crowned  with  suc- 
cess. They  witness  the  rising  spirit  of  indignation  against  the  invaders,  and  of 
martial  heroism  on  all  hands.  It  spreads  from  heart  to  heart,  and  throbs  in  the 
bosoms  of  the  men,  and  even  of  the  women  and  children.  At  this  point  a  new  evil 
displays  itself.  Fathers,  husbands,  and  sons  desert  their  ripening  crops  and  their 
unprotected  families,  and  rush  together,  a  tumultuous,  unarmed  mob,  clamorous  for 
war.  Confusion  and  distress  succeed  to  apathy.  The  danger  is  increased  rather 
than  lessened.  Famine  and  pestilence  threaten  now  to  be  added  to  the  fury  of 
conquerors  incensed  by  irritating  demonstrations  of  a  resistance  powerless  for  de- 
fence. Then  arises  the  demand  for  military  science.  At  this  point  it  is  the  part 
of  the  wise  men  who  control  the  destinies  of  the  people  to  abandon  their  mission- 
ary labor  and  assume  the  character  of  commanders  and  military  engineers.  Preach- 
ing is  no  longer  in  order.  The  man  who  from  over-zeal  persists  in  inflaming  the 
minds  of  the  populace,  however  well-intentioned,  may  prove  the  most  deadh'^  enemy 
of  his  country.  Organization,  the  forming  of  companies,  the  drilling  of  squads, 
and  the  construction  of  forts  are  now  in  demand.  Desire,  the  substance,  subsists, 
demanding  of  Science  the  true  Form  of  its  manifestation. 

9.  What  Patriotism  is  to  the  Science  of  War  for  the  purpose  of  defence,  the  re- 
ligious sentiment  of  Love  is  to  the  true  Science  of  Society.  The  hearty  recognition 
of  human  brotherhood,  and  the  aspkation  after  true  relations  with  God  and  man, 
are,  at  this  day,  widely  diffused  in  the  ranks  of  society.  Christianity  has  produced 
its  fruit  in  the  development  of  right  affection  far  beyond  what  the  religious  teach- 
ers among  us  are  themselves  disposed  to  credit  it  for.  The  demand  is  not  now  for 
more  eloquence,  and  touching  appeals,  and  fervent  prayers  to  swell  the  heart  to 
bursting  with  painful  sympathies  for  suifering  humanity.  The  time  has  come  when 
preaching  must  give  way  to  action,  aspiration  to  realization,  and  amiable  but  fruit- 
less sympathetic  affections  to  fundamental  investigation  and  scientific  methods. 
The  true  preachers  of  the  next  age  will  be  the  scientific  discoverers  and  the  prac- 
tical organizers  of  true  social  relations  among  men.  The  religious  objection  to 
Social  Science  is  unphilosopliical  and  suicidal. 


50  TJie  Science  of  Society. 

10.  There  is  another  form  in  which  this  objection  is  sometimes  urged  by  those 
who  claim  to  understand  somewhat  the  philosophy  of  progress.  They  affirm  that, 
if  the  disposition  to  do  right  exist  in  the  Individual  or  in  the  community,  that  dis- 
position will  inevitably  conduct  to  the  knowledge  of  the  right  way;  in  other  words, 
that  AYisdom  is  a  necessary  outgrowth  of  Love;  and  hence  they  deduce  the  conclu- 
sion that  we  need  not  concern  oui'selves  in  the  least  about  discovering  the  laws  of 
a  true  social  order.  The  premise  of  this  statement  is  true,  while  the  conclusion  is 
false.  Taken  together,  it  is  as  if  one  should  assert  that  the  sense  of  hunger  natu- 
rally impels  men  to  find  the  means  of  subsistence,  and  hence  that  no  man  need 
trouble  himself  about  food.  Let  him  sit  down,  quietly  relying  upon  the  potency 
of  mere  hunger  to  provide  the  means  of  the  gratification  of  his  appetite. 

11.  The  very  fact  of  the  Socialist  agitation  of  our  day,  and  the  continued  repe- 
titions in  every  quarter  of  the  attempt  to  work  out  the  problem  of  universal  justice 
and  harmony,  are  the  very  outgrowth  in  question  of  the  indwelling  desire  for  truer 
social  relations,  and  never  could  have  arisen  but  for  the  previous  existence  of  that 
desire.  The  religionist  who  denies  or  ignores  this  inevitable  sequitur  from  the 
spirit  of  his  own  teachings,  is  like  the  insane  head  that  first  wills  and  then  disowns 
the  hand  that  performs. 

Science  —  the  rigid,  exact,  thorough,  and  inclusive  Science  of  Society — is  the 
only  reliable  guide  to  harmonic  social  relations  among  men.  Neither  the  ardor  of 
piety,  nor  the  sentiment  of  brotherhood,  nor  the  desperate  devotion  of  generous 
enthusiasm,  nor  the  repressive  force  of  a  rigid  morality,  offers  any  adequate  remedy 
for  the  existing  evils  of  humanity.  All  these  may  be  necessary,  indispensable,  nay, 
infinitely  higher  in  rank  or  sanctity,  if  you  will,  than  the  other.  But  Love  must 
have  its  complement  in  Wisdom.  To  divorce  them  is  to  be  guilty  of  "pariiatism," 
just  where  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  movement  shall  be  integral  and 
complete. 

12.  Possibly  this  statement  may  enlighten  some  minds  in  relation  to  the  exist- 
ing misunderstanding  between  the  religionists  and  the  Socialists.  The  former  in- 
sist upon  the  spiritual  element,  the  latter  upon  the  scientific,  as  if  the  one  or  the 
other  supplied  the  whole  of  what  is  requisite  to  a  true  development  of  society. 
Abstractly,  the  religionist  may  be  said  to  be  the  nearest  right,  inasmuch  as  sub- 
stance is  prior  to  form;  but  practically,  and  with  reference  to  the  present  wants  of 
society,  the  Socialist  is  nearer  the  truth.  The  spiritual  element  exists  already,  at 
least  in  embryo.  The  aspiration  after  better  and  truer  relations  is  swelling  daily, 
bursting  the  bauds  of  existing  institutions,  and  demanding  knowledge  of  the  true 
■^vay,  —  an  organized  body  of  the  Christian  idea  of  human  brotherhood  which  the 
livmg  soul  may  enter,  and  wherein  it  may  dwell.  But  neither  without  the  other  is 
complete. 

13.  So  powerful  is  becoming  the  sentiment  of  right  that,  unless  the  demand  so 
created  be  followed  by  a  complete  discovery  of  the  methods  of  its  gratification, 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  61 

there  is  abundant  danger  that  justice  as  a  blind  instinct  may  prove  more  destruc- 
tive than  organized  oppression.  As  in  the  case  of  the  misdirected  or  ill-directed 
patriotism  in  the  illustration  above,  so  every  right  sentiment  and  aifection,  without 
its  complement  of  wisdom,  is  liable  to  become  pernicious  instead  of  beneficent  in 
its  action.  If  the  love  the  mother  bears  her  child  leads  her  to  feed  it  to  excess  on 
candies  and  comfits,  to  confine  it  in  close,  warm  rooms,  and  guard  it  from  contact 
with  whatever  may  test  and  develop  its  powers  of  endurance,  far  better  that  she 
loved  it  less.  She  needs,  in  addition  to  love,  a  knowledge  of  Physiology.  The 
Science  of  Society  is  to  the  Community  what  Physiology  is  to  the  Individual;  or, 
rather,  it  is  to  the  relations  of  the  Individual  with  others  what  Physiology  is  to  the 
relations  of  the  Individual,  so  to  speak,  with  himself. 

14.  In  the  same  manner  the  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  laboring  classes  or 
their  friends  that  they  are  under  an  oppressive  and  exhausting  system  of  the  rela- 
tions of  capital  and  labor  does  not  amount  to  a  knowledge  of  the  true  system,  into 
which,  when  known,  it  should  be  their  object  to  bring  themselves  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible. To  discover  that  true  system,  by  any  other  means  than  by  long  years,  per- 
haps long  generations,  of  fallacious  and  exhausting  experiments,  must  be  the  work 
of  genius,  of  true  science,  profound  fundamental  investigation,  or  any  other  name  you 
choose  to  bestow  upon  that  faculty  and  that  process  by  which  elementary  truths 
are  evolved  by  contemplating  the  nature  of  a  subject. 

15.  The  Socialist  agitations  of  the  present  day  are,  therefore,  eminently  danger-  -^^ 
ous,  as  much  so  as  the  most  violent  reactionist  ever  imagined  them,  unless  Science 
intervenes  to  point  the  way  to  the  solution.  Religion,  nor  the  dictates  of  a  strin- 
gent morality,  will  ever  reconcile  men  who  have  once  appreciated  their  inherent, 
God-given  rights,  to  the  permanency  of  an  unjust  system  by  which  they  are  de- 
prived of  them.  Mere  make-shifts  and  patched-up  contrivances  will  not  answer. 
False  methods,  such  as  Strikes,  Trades'  Unions,  Combinations  of  interests,  and  ar- 
bitrary regulations  of  all  sorts,  are  but  temporary  palliations  ending  uniformly  in 
disappointment,  and  often  in  aggravation  of  the  evils  sought  to  be  alleviated.  A 
distinguished  writer  upon  these  subjects  says  truly :  "  Establish  tomorrow  an  ample 

and  fair  Scale  of  Prices  in  every  employment  under  the  sun,  and  two  years  of  quiet 
and  the  ordinary  mutations  of  Business  would  suffice  to  undermine  and  efface 
nearly  the  whole.  No  reform  under  the  present  system,  but  a  decided  step  out  of 
and  above  that  system,  is  the  fit  and  enduring  remedy  for  the  wrongs  and  oppres- 
sions of  Labor  by  Capital.  And  this  must  inevitably  be  a  work  of  time,  of  pa- 
tience, of  genius,  of  self-sacrifice,  and  true  heroism."  In  other  words,  it  is  the 
province  of  Science  to  discover  the  true  principles  of  trade  as  much  as  it  is  to  dis- 
cover the  laws  of  every  other  department  of  human  concerns,  and  that  discovery  is 
an  important  part  of  the  still  more  comprehensive  Science  of  Society. 

16.  If,  then,  some  profound  philosopher,  whose  high  authority  could  command 
universal  belief,  were  to  step  forward  and  announce  the  discovery  of  a  simple  prin- 


oz 


The  Science  of  Society. 


ciple,  which  —  adopted  iu  trade  or  business — would  deterraiue  with  arithmetical 
certainty  the  equitable  price  to  be  charged  for  every  article  sold,  and  for  every 
species  of  property,  and  for  every  hour  of  time  bestowed  upon  its  production  and 
distribution,  so  that  labor  in  every  department  should  get  precisely  its  due  reward, 
and  the  existing  inequalities  in  the  distribution  of  wealth,  and  the  consequent  pov- 
erty and  wretchedness  of  the  masses,  be  speedily  alleviated  and  finally  removed; 
and  if,  in  addition,  the  principle  were  such  that  its  adoption  and  practical  conse- 
quences did  not  depend  upon  convincing  the  intellects  or  appealing  to  the  benevo- 
lence of  the  wealthy  classes,  but  lay  within  the  compass  of  the  powers  of  the 
laboring  men  themselves ;  if,  still  f m'ther  than  this,  the  principle  did  not  demand, 
as  a  preliminary,  the  extensive  cooperation,  the  mutual  and  implicit  confidence,  the 
complicated  arrangements,  the  extensive  knowledge  of  administration,  and  the 
violent  change  in  domestic  habits,  some  one  or  other  of  which  is  involved  in  nearly 
every  proposition  of  Socialism,  and  for  which  the  laboring  classes  are  specially  dis- 
qualified ;  if,  in  one  word,  this  simple  principle  furnished  demonstrably,  unequivo- 
cally, immediately,  and  practically,  the  means  whereby  the  laboring  classes  might 
step  out  fi'om  iwirfer  the  present  system,  and  place  themselves  in  a  condition  of  inde- 
pendence above  that  system, — would  not  this  announcement  come  in  good  time; 
would  it  not  be  a  supply  eminently  adapted  to  the  present  demand  of  the  laboring 
masses  in  this  country  and  elsewhere? 

With  some  misgivings  as  to  the  prudence  of  asserting  such  a  faith,  in  limine,  1 
state  my  conviction  that  such  a  principle  has  been  discovered  and  is  now  in  the 
possession  of  a  small  number  of  persons  who  have  been  engaged  in  practically  test- 
ing it,  until  its  regulating  and  wealth-producing  effects  have  been  sufficiently, 
though  not  abundantly,  demonstrated. 

17.  JosiAH  Warrek,  formerly  of  Cincinnati,  more  recently  a  resident  of  Indi- 
ana, is,  I  believe,  justly  entitled  to  be  considered  the  discoverer  of  the  principle  to 
which  I  refer,  along  with  several  others  which  he  deems  essential  to  the  rectifica- 
tion of  the  social  evils  of  the  existing  state  of  society. 

The  principle  itself  is  one  which  will  not  probably  strike  the  reader,  when  first 
stated,  as  either  very  profound,  very  practicable  in  its  application,  very  important 
in  its  consequences,  and  perhaps  not  even  as  equitable  in  itself.  It  requires  thought 
to  be  bestowed  on  each  of  these  points.  You  will  find,  however,  as  you  subject  it 
to  analysis,  as  you  trace  it  into  its  ten  thousand  different  applications,  to  owner- 
ship, to  rent,  to  wages,  etc.,  that  it  places  all  human  transactions  relating  to  pro- 
perty upon  a  new  basis  of  exact  justice,  —  that  is,  it  has  the  perfect,  simple,  but 
all-prevailing  character  of  a  universal  principle. 

The  question  as  to  the  method  of  commencing  to  put  the  principle  in  operation 
is  a  distinct  one,  and  only  needs  to  be  considered  after  the  principle  itself  is  under- 
stood. I  have  already  observed  that  it  has  been  and  is  now  being  practically  tested 
with  entu-e  success. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  63 

18.  This  principle,  put  into  a  formula,  is  thus  stated:  "Cost  is  the  Limit  of 
Price." 

The  counter  principle  upon  which  all  ownership  is  now  maintained  and  all  com- 
merce transacted  in  the  world  is  that  "  Value  is  the  limit  of  price,"  or,  as  tlie  prin- 
ciple is  generally  stated  in  the  cant  language  of  trade,  "A  thing  is  worth  what  it 
will  bring."  Between  these  two  principles,  so  similar  that  the  difference  in  the 
statement  would  hardly  attract  a  moment's  attention  unless  it  were  specially  in- 
sisted upon,  lies  the  essential  difference  between  the  whole  system  of  civilized  can- 
nibalism by  which  the  masses  of  human  beings  are  mercilessly  ground  to  powder 
for  the  accumulation  of  the  wealth  of  the  few,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other, 
the  reign  of  equity,  the  just  remuneration  of  labor,  and  the  independence  and  ele- 
vation of  all  mankind. 

19.  There  is  nothing  apparently  more  innocent,  harmless,  and  equitable  in  the 
world  than  the  statement  that  a  "thing  should  bring  what  it  is  worth,"  and  yet 
even  that  statement  covers  the  most  subtle  fallacy  which  it  has  ever  been  given  to 
human  genius  to  detect  and  expose, — a  fallacy  more  fruitful  of  evil  than  any  other 
which  the  human  intellect  has  ever  been  beclouded  by.  (130.) 

20.  Value  has  nothing  whatever  to  do,  upon  scientific  principles,  as  demon- 
strated by  Mr.  Warren,  with  settling  the  price  at  which  any  article  should  be 
sold.     Cost  is  the  only  equitable  limit,  and  by  cost  is  meant  the  amount  of  labor' 
bestowed  on  its  production,  that  measure  being  again  measured  by  the  painfulness 
or  repugnance  of  the  labor  itself.  (61,  65.) 

Value  is  a  consideration  for  the  purchaser  alone,  and  determines  him  whether  he 
will  give  the  amount  of  the  cost  or  not.  (132.) 

21.  This  statement  is  calculated  to  raise  a  host  of  objections  and  inquiries.  If 
one  purchaser  values  an  article  more  highly  than  another,  by  what  principle  will 
he  be  prevented  from  offering  a  higher  price?  How  is  it  possible  to  measure  the 
relative  painfulness  or  repugnance  of  labor?  What  allowance  is  to  be  made  for 
superior  skill  or  natural  capacity?  How  is  that  to  be  settled?  How  does  this 
principle  settle  the  questions  of  interest,  rent,  machinery,  etc.?  What  is  the  na- 
ture of  the  practical  experiments  which  have  already  been  made?  etc.,  etc. 

22.  These  several  questions  will  be  specifically  answered  in  this  treatise  upon 
"  The  Cost  Principle,"  except  the  last,  which  will  be  more  satisfactorily  replied  to 
by  a  work  embodying  the  "Practical  Details"  of  twenty-four  years  of  continuous 
experiment  upon  the  workmgs  of  this  and  the  other  principles  related  to  it,  and 
announced  by  Mr.  Warren,  which  work  Mr.  Warren  is  now  engaged  himself  in 
preparing  for  the  press.  These  "Practical  Details"  will  relate  to  the  operations 
of  two  mercantile  establishments  conducted  at  different  points,  upon  the  Cost 
Principle,  to  the  education  of  children,  to  social  intercourse,  and,  finally,  to  the 
complex  affairs  of  a  village  or  town  which  has  grown  up  during  the  last  four  years, 
under  the  system  of  "Equitable  Commerce,"  of  which  the  Cost  Principle  is  the 


54  The  Science  of  Society. 

basis.  This  work  upon  "  Practical  Details  "  will  contain,  I  may  venture  to  aflirm, 
from  a  personal  knowledge  of  its  character,  a  body  of  facts  profoundly  interesting 
to  the  philanthropic  and  philosophic  student  of  human  affaii-s.  It  must  suffice  for 
the  present  allusion  to  assert  that  there  is  no  one  of  the  circle  of  principles  em- 
braced by  Mr.  "V\''arren  under  the  general  name  of  "Equitable  Commerce,"  or  by 
myself  under  the  name  of  "  The  Science  of  Society,"  which  has  not  been  patiently, 
repeatedly,  and  successfully  applied  in  practice,  in  a  variety  of  modes,  long  before 
it  was  announced  in  theory,  —  a  point  in  which  it  is  thought  that  these  principles 
differ  materially  from  all  the  numerous  speculations  upon  social  subjects  to  which 
the  attention  of  the  public  has  been  heretofore  solicited. 

23.  The  village  to  which  I  have  referred  is  situated  in  the  State  of  Ohio.  It 
contains  as  yet  only  about  twenty  families,  or  one  hundred  inhabitants,  having  a 
present  prospect  of  a  pretty  rapid  increase  of  numbers.  I  will  call  it,  for  the  sake 
of  a  name  by  which  to  refer  to  it,  Trialville,  stating  at  the  same  time  that  this 
is  not  the  real  name  of  the  village,  which  I  do  not  venture  to  give,  as  it  might  be 
disagreeable  to  some  of  the  inhabitants  to  have  the  glare  of  public  notoriety  at  so 
early  a  day  upon  their  modest  experiment.  It  might  also  subject  them  to  visits  of 
mere  curiosity,  or  to  letters  of  inquiry,  which,  without  their  consent,  I  have  not  the 
right  to  impose  upon  them.  Another  village  upon  the  same  principles  is  about  be- 
ing oi'ganized  in  the  vicinity  of  New  York. 

Under  the  sobriquet  of  Trialville  I  shall  have  occasion,  however,  to  refer  to 
the  operations  at  the  former  of  these  villages,  which  have  so  far  proved  successful 
in  a  practical  point  of  view  that  it  is  deemed,  on  the  part  of  those  most  interested 
in  this  movement,  to  be  a  fitting  time,  now,  to  call  the  public  attention  more  gene- 
rally to  the  results.  The  publication  of  these  treatises  is  in  fact  the  beginning  of 
that  effort,  which,  if  the  intentions  of  those  of  us  who  are  engaged  in  the  enter- 
prise do  not  fail  of  realization,  will  be  more  and  more  continuously  and  urgently 
put  forth  from  this  time  forward.  We  believe  that  we  have  a  great  mission  to 
fulfill,  —  a  gospel  of  glad  tidings  to  proclaim,  —  a  practical  and  immediate  solution 
of  the  whole  problem  of  human  rights  and  their  full  fruition  to  expound.  While, 
therefore,  we  cannot  and  would  not  entirely  couceal  the  enthusiastic  feelings  by 
which  we  are  prompted  in  this  effort,  still,  lest  it  may  be  thought  that  such  senti- 
ments may  have  usurped  the  province  of  reason,  we  invite  the  most  cautious  inves- 
tigation and  the  most  rigid  scrutiny,  not  only  of  the  principles  we  propound,  but 
also  of  the  facts  of  their  practical  working.  While,  therefore,  I  do  not  give  the 
real  name  or  exact  location  of  our  trial  villages  to  the  public  at  large,  for  the  rea- 
sons I  have  stated,  still  we  are  anxious  that  all  the  facts  relating  to  them  shall  be 
known,  and  the  fullest  opportunity  for  thorough  investigation  be  given  to  all  who 
may  become  in  any  especial  degree  interested  in  the  subject.  The  author  of  this 
work  will  be  gratified  to  communicate  with  all  such,  and  to  reply  to  such  inquiries 
as  they  may  desire  to  have  answered,  upon  a  simple  statement  of  their  interest  in 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  55 

the  subject  and  their  wish  to  Ivuow  more  of  it.  The  real  uame  and  location  of  our 
trial  towns  will  be  communicated  to  such,  and  every  facility  given  for  investigation. 
Arrangements  are  contemplated  for  organizing  other  villages  upon  the  same 
principles,  and  establishing  an  equitable  exchange  of  products  between  them.  It 
is  not  the  object  of  the  present  work,  however,  to  enter  into  the  history  or  general 
plan  of  the  movement,  but  simply  to  elucidate  a  single  principle  of  a  new  science 
embracing  the  field  of  Ethics  and  of  Political  Economy. 

24.  It  will  be  appropriate,  in  this  preliminary  statement  of  the  subject,  to  guard 
against  one  or  two  misapprehensions  which  may  naturally  enough  arise  from  the 
nature  of  the  terms  employed,  or  from  the  apparently  disproportionate  importance 
attached  to  a  simple  principle  of  trade. 

The  term  "Equitable  Commerce"  does  not  signify  merely  a  new  adjustment  of 
the  method  of  buying  and  selling.  The  term  is  employed,  by  Mr.  Warren,  to  sig- 
nify the  whole  of  what  I  have  preferred  to  denominate  the  Science  of  Society,  in- 
cluding Ethics,  Political  Economy,  and  all  else  that  concerns  the  outer  relations  of 
mankind.  At  the  same  time  the  mutual  interchange  of  products  is,  as  it  were,  the 
continent  or  basis  upon  which  all  other  intercourse  rests.  Society  reclines  upon 
Industry.  Without  it  man  cannot  exist.  Other  things  may  be  of  higher  import, 
but  it  is  of  primary  necessity.  Solitary  industry  does  not  supply  the  wants  of  the 
individual.  Hence  trade  or  the  exchange  of  products.  With  trade  intercourse  be- 
gins. It  is  the  first  in  order  of  the  long  train  of  benefits  which  mankind  mutually 
minister  to  each  other.  The  term  "commerce"  is  sometimes  synonymous  with 
trade  or  traffic,  and  at  other  times  it  is  used  in  a  more  comprehensive  sense.  For 
that  reason  it  has  a  double  appropriateness  to  the  subjects  under  consideration. 
It  is  employed  therefore  in  the  phrase  "Equitable  Commerce,"  to  signify, /rs^, 
Commerce  in  the  minor  sense,  as  synonymous  with  "trade,"  and  secondly,  Com- 
merce in  the  major  sense,  as  synonymous  with  the  old  English  signification  of  the 
word,  "conversation," — i.  e.,  human  intercourse  of  all  sorts, — the  concrete,  or  tout 
ensemble,  of  human  relations. 

25.  I  will  here  show  that  these  investigations  take  in  the  whole  scope  of  Com- 
merce in  the  major  sense,  after  which  I  will  return  to  the  particular  consideration 
and  elucidation  of  the  single  principle,  "Cost  is  the  Limit  of  Price,"  which 
does,  indeed,  chiefly  or  primarily  relate  to  Commerce  in  the  minor  sense,  although 
the  modes  in  which  it  affects  Commerce  in  the  major  sense  are  almost  infinite. 

26.  Accordmg  to  Mr.  Warren,  the  following  is  The  Problem  to  be  Solved 
in  aU  its  several  branches : 

1.     "The  proper,  legitimate,  and  just  reward  of  labor." 
■  2.     "  Security  of  person  and  property." 

3.  "  The  greatest  practicable  amount  of  freedom  to  each  individual." 

4.  "Economy  in  the  production  and  uses  of  wealth." 

5.  "To  open  the  way  to  each  individual  for  the  possession  of  land  and  all  other 
natural  wealth." 


56  The  Science  of  Society. 

6.  "  To  make  the  interests  of  all  to  cooperate  with  and  assist  each  other,  instead 
of  clashing  with  and  counteracting  each  other." 

7.  "To  withdraw  the  elements  of  discord,  of  war,  of  distrust  and  repulsion,  and 
to  establish  a  prevailing  spirit  of  peace,  order,  and  social  sympathy." 

27.  And  according  to  him,  also,  the  following  pklnciples  are  the  means  of  the 
solution : 

I.  "  Individuality." 

II.  "The  Sovereignty  of  each  Individual." 

III.  "Cost  the  Limit  of  Price." 

IV.  "A  Circulating  Medium,  founded  on  the  Cost  of  Labor." 

V.  "Adaptation  of  the  Supply  to  the  Demand." 

28.  The  mere  reading  of  this  programme  will  suggest  the  immensity  of  the 
scope  to  which  the  subject  extends.  In  the  present  volume  I  have  selected  a  single 
principle,  —  the  third  among  those  above  named,  —  and  shall  adhere  to  a  pretty 
thorough  exposition  of  it,  rather  than  overload  the  mind  of  the  reader  by  bringing 
into  view  the  whole  of  a  system,  covering  all  possible  human  relations.  A  few 
minds  may,  from  the  mere  statement  of  these  principles,  begin  to  perceive  the 
rounded  outlines  of  what  is,  as  I  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm,  the  most  complete  scien- 
tific  statement  of  the  problem  of  human  society,  and  of  the  fundamental  principles 
of  social  science,  which  has  ever  been  presented  to  the  world.  Most,  however,  will 
hardly  begin  to  understand  the  universal  and  all-pervading  potency  of  these  few 
simple  principles,  until  they  find  them  elaborately  displayed  and  elucidated.  At 
present  I  must  take  the  broad  license  of  asserting  that  they  are  universal  prin- 
ciples, and  referring  the  reader,  for  what  I  mean  by  a  universal  principle,  to  what 
I  have  to  say  of  the  one  which  I  have  selected  for  a  particular  explanation, — 
"  Cost  the  Limit  of  Price." 

29.  As  a  mere  hint,  however,  in  relation  to  the  others,  let  us  take  the  last, 
"Adaptation  of  the  Supply  to  the  Demand."  This  seems  to  be  a  formula 
relating  merely,  as,  in  fact,  it  does  relate  mainly,  to  ordinary  commerce,  —  trade, — 
commerce  in  the  minor  sense.  In  that  sense,  it  expresses  an  immense  want  of 
civilized  society, — nothing  less,  as  Carlyle  has  it,  than  a  knowledge  of  the  way  of 
getting  the  supernumerary  shirts  into  contact  with  the  backs  of  the  men  who  have 
none.  But  this  same  principle  introduced  into  the  parlor  becomes  likewise  the 
regulator  of  politeness  and  good  manners,  and  pertains  thei'efore  to  commerce  in 
the  major  sense  as  well.  I  am,  for  example,  overflowing  with  immoderate  zeal  for 
the  principles  which  I  am  now  discussing.  I  broach  them  on  every  occasion.  I 
seize  every  man  by  the  button-hole,  and  inflict  on  him  a  lecture  on  the  beauties  of 
Equitable  Commerce ;  in  fine,  I  make  myself  a  universal  bore,  as  every  reformer  is 
like  to  be  more  or  less.  But  at  the  moment  some  urbane  and  conservative  old 
gentleman  politely  observes  to  me,  "  Sir,  I  perceive  one  of  your  principles  is,  '  The 
Adaptation  of  the  Supply  to  the  Demand.'"     I  take  the  bint  immediately.     My 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  67 

mouth  is  closed.     I  perceive  that  my  lecture  is  not  wanted,  —  that  he  does  not  care 
to  interest  hiraseK  in  the  subject.     There  is  no  demand,  and  I  stop  the  supply. 

But  you  are  ready  to  say,  Would  not  the  same  hint  given  in  some  other  form 
stop  the  impertinence  of  over-zealous  advocacy  in  any  case?  Let  those  answer  who 
have  been  bored.  But  suppose  it  did,  could  it  be  done  so  gracefully,  in  any  way, 
as  by  referring  the  offender  to  one  of  the  very  principles  he  is  advocating,  or  which 
he  professes?  .Again:  grant  that  it  have  the  effect  to  stop  that  annoyance,  the 
hint  itself  is  taken  as  an  offence,  and  the  offended  man,  instead  of  continuing  the 
conversation  upon  some  other  subject  that  might  be  agreeable,  goes  off  in  a  huff, 
and  most  probably  you  have  made  him  an  enemy  for  life.  But,  in  my  case,  it  will 
not  even  be  necessary  for  the  conservative  old  gentleman  to  remind  me, — I  shall 
at  once  recollect  that  another  of  my  principles  is,  "  The  Sovereignty  of  the  Ik- 
dividual."  One  of  the  highest  exercises  of  that  sovereignty  is  the  choice  of  the 
subjects  about  which  one  will  converse  and  upon  which  he  v/ill  bestow  his  time; 
hence  I  recognize  cordially  his  right  to  exclude  my  subject,  and  immediately, 
gracefully,  and  good-humoredly  I  glide  off  upon  some  other  topic.  Then,  by  a  law 
of  the  human  mind,  which  it  is  extremely  important  to  understand,  and  practically 
to  observe,  if  it  be  possible  that  there  should  ever  arise  a  demand  with  him  to  hear 
any  thing  about  that  subject,  my  uniform  deference  for  even  his  prejudices  will 
hasten  the  time.  Indeed,  all  conservative  old  gentlemen,  who  hate  reform  of  all 
sorts  as  they  do  ratsbane,  would  do  well  to  make  themselves  at  once  familiar  with 
these  principles,  and  to  disseminate  them  as  the  means  of  defending  themselves. 
Do  you  begin  to  perceive  that  such  a  mere  tradesman-like  formula,  at  first  blush, 
as  "The  Adaptation  of  the  Supply  to  the  Demand,"  becomes  one  of  the  high- 
est regulators  of  good  manners,  —  a  part  of  the  ethics  of  conversation, — of  the  "  Equi- 
table Commerce"  of  gentlemanly  intercourse,  —  as  well  as  what  it  seems  to  be,  an 
important  element  of  trade ;  and  do  you  catch  a  glimpse  of  what  I  mean,  when  I 
say  that  it  is  a  universal  principle  of  commerce  in  the  major  sense? 

30.  The  doctrine  of  Individuality  is  equally  universal.  I  have  only  to  say 
here  that  it  means  the  next  thing  to  every  thing,  when  you  come  to  its  applications. 
It  means,  as  applied  to  persons,  that  every  human  being  has  a  distinct  character 
or  individuality  of  his  own,  so  that  any  attempt  to  classify  him  with  others,  or  to 
measure  him  by  others,  is  a  breach  of  his  natural  liberty ;  and,  as  applied  to  f acts^ 
that  no  two  cases  ever  occurred  precisely  similar,  and  hence  that  no  arbitrary 
general  rule  can  possibly  be  applied  to  cases  not  yet  arisen.  It  follows,  therefore,  ^ 
that  all  laws,  systems,  and  constitutions  whatsoever  must  yield  to  the  individual, 
or  else  that  liberty  must  be  infringed;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  Individual  is 
above  Institutions,  and  that  no  social  system  can  claim  to  be  the  true  one,  which  re- 
quires for  its  harmonious  operation  that  the  Individual  shall  be  subjected  to  the 
system,  or  to  any  institutions  whatsoever. 

We  are  taught  by  it  that  all  combinations  of  interest  whatsoever  are  limitations         ~- 


58  The  Science  of  Society. 

upon  the  exercise  of  the  individuality  of  the  parties,  or  restrictions  upon  natural 
liberty.  Hence  also,  by  Individuality,  the  true  practical  movement  begins  with  a 
complete  disintegration  of  all  amalgamated  interests,  such  as  partnerships,  in  a 
manner  peculiar  to  itself.  Hence,  again,  to  the  casual  observer,  this  movement 
seems  to  be  in  exact  antagonism  to  Association,  and  the  views  of  Socialism  of  all 
the  various  schools.  A  more  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  subject  will  show, 
however,  that  this  individualizing  of  all  interests  is  the  analysis  of  society/,  prelimi- 
nary to  association  as  the  synthesis,  —  as  much  association  as  is  demanded  by  the 
economies,  being  a  growth  of  that  cooperation  of  interests  —  not  combination  or 
amalgamation — which  results  from  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle.  (3,  37.) 

31.  The  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  grows  out  of  the  more  fundamen- 
tal principle  of  Individuality,  as  stated  in  No.  I.  of  this  series.  A  special  occa- 
sion called  for  that  treatise,  and  limited  it  to  a  particular  application.  The 
extensive  nature  of  the  subject  in  its  numerous  ramifications  will  demand  a  sepa- 
rate work  upon  Individuality  and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  which,  while 
they  are  distinguishable  as  principles,  stand,  nevertheless,  closely  related  to  each 
other. 

32.  A  Circulating  Medium  founded  on  the  Cost  of  Labor  is,  perhaps, 
not  so  properly  a  principle  as  an  indispensable  instrument  for  carrying  the  Cost 
principle  into  practical  operation.  It  is  a  monetary  system,  holding  to  the  true  or 
equitable  system  of  Commerce  a  relation  quite  similar  to  that  which  specie  aird 
bank  notes  now  hold  to  the  present  false  and  dishonest  system.  The  subject  of 
equitable  money  will  be  treated  of  more  at  large  in  the  subsequent  chapters,  and 
does  not  require  any  further  explanation  at  this  point.  As  such  a  circulating  me- 
dium is  one  of  the  necessary  conditions  of  working  out  the  true  societary  results, 
it  is  classed  with  principles,  along  with  the  means  of  the  solution.  (69,  245.) 

33.  It  is  claimed  that  within  the  circle  of  these  five  prmciples  or  efficient  powers 
is  found  every  condition  of  the  complete  development  of  a  true  social  order,  or,  in 
other  words,  a  full  and  perfect  solution  of  the  social  problem  stated  above.  Is  that 
statement  of  the  problem  sufficiently  comprehensive?  Does  it  include,  either  di- 
rectly or  consequentially,  all  which  has  ever  been  aimed  at  by  social  reformers  of 
any  school,  and  all  which  is  requisite  to  the  full  harmony  and  beauty  of  human  re- 
lations? If  that  be  so,  and  if  the  assumption  just  stated  be  made  good,  both  by 
exposition  and  practical  results,  then  have  we  at  length  a  theory  of  society  strictly 
entitled  to  the  appellation  of  a  Science,  —  a  movement,  precise,  definite,  and  conse- 
quential, adequate,  on  the  one  hand,  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  most  exacting 
intellect,  and  sufficiently  beneficent,  on  the  other,  to  gratify  the  desires  of  the  most 
expansive  philanthropy,  while  in  its  remoter  results  it  promises  to  satiate  the  re- 
fined cravings  of  the  most  fastidious  taste. 

34.  This  volume  treats  professedly  upon  the  Cost  Principle.  Still  each  of  the 
principles  above  stated  will  necessarily  be  referred  to  from  time  to  time.     It  will 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  59 

perhaps  be  well,  therefore,  that  the  particular  discussion  of  the  principle  which  I 
have  selected  for  present  consideration  should  be  prefaced  by  a  brief  statement  of 
the  interrelations  and  mutual  dependence  of  these  several  principles  upon  each 
other. 

It  is  especially  appropriate  that  something  should  be  shown  which  will  bridge 
over  the  seeming  gap  between  so  metaphysical  a  statement  as  that  of  the  Sover- 
eignty of  the  Individual,  as  set  forth  in  the  preceding  Number,  and  the  merely 
commercial  consideration  of  an  appropriate  limit  of  price.  An  integral  view  of  the 
connections  of  the  different  parts  of  this  system  of  principles  can  only  be  a  final 
result  of  a  thorough  familiarity  with  their  detailed  applications  and  practical  ef- 
fects. At  the  same  time  the  fact  that  they  are  connected  and  mutually  dependent 
will  appear  upon  slight  examination.  For  the  rest,  I  must  take  the  license  to  as- 
sert, with  great  emphasis,  the  existence  of  so  intimate  a  relation  between  them 
that,  if  any  one  of  them  is  omitted,  it  is  totally  impossible  to  work  out  the  pro- 
posed results.  The  others  will  remain  true,  but  any  one  of  them,  or  any  four  of 
them,  are  wholly  inadequate  to  the  solution.  This  connection  may  be  established 
by  beginning  almost  indifferently  at  any  point  in  the  circle.  Let  us  assume,  as  a 
starting  point,  The  Adaptatiox  of  the  Supply  to  the  Demand. 

35.  By  Adaptation  of  Supply  to  Demand  is  meant  a  sufficiency  of  any  variety 
of  product,  present  at  every  time  and  place,  to  meet  the  want  for  that  particular  product 
which  may  he  felt  at  the  same  time  and  place.  It  is  wholly  from  the  defect  of  such  ar- 
rangements, in  the  existing  commercial  system,  as  would  secure  such  an  adaptation 
of  supply  to  demand,  that  society  is  afflicted  with  periodical  famine  or  scarcity,  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  with  gluts  of  the  market,  and  consequent  sacrifice  and  general 
bankruptcy,  and,  far  more  important  than  all,  because  more  continuous,  with  what 
is  called  an  excess  of  labor  in  the  various  labor  markets  of  the  world,  by  which 
thousands  of  men  and  women  able  to  work  and  willing  to  work  are  deprived  of  the 
opportunity  to  do  so.  There  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  the  case  why  there 
should  not  be  as  accurate  a  knowledge  in  the  community  of  the  statistics  of  supply 
and  demand  as  there  is  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  tides,  nor  why  that  knowledge 
should  not  be  applied  to  secure  a  mmute,  accurate,  and  punctual  distribution  of 
products  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  according  to  the  wants  of  various  countries, 
neighborhoods,  and  individuals.  The  supposed  excess  of  labor  is  no  more  an  excess 
than  congestion  is  an  excess  of  blood  in  the  human  system.  The  scarcity  of  the  circu- 
lating medium  which  is  now  in  use,  and  which  is  requisite  for  the  intercliange  of 
commodities,  is  regarded  by  those  who  have  studied  this  subject  profoundly  as  the 
principal  difiiculty  in  the  way  of  such  an  adjustment,  but  that  scarcity  itself  is 
only  a  specific  form  and  instance  of  the  general  want  of  adaptation  of  supply  to 
demand,  which  extends  far  beyond  all  questions  of  currency, — the  supply  of  circu- 
lating medium  being  unequal  to  the  demand  for  it,  owing  to  the  expensiveness  of 
the  substances  selected  for  such  medium,  and  their  consequent  total  unfitness  for 
the  purpose. 


^ 


60  The  Science  of  Society. 

36.  It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  that  appropriate  arrangements  for  the 
adaptation  of  supply  to  demand  are  a  sine  qua  non  of  a  true  social  order.  But  the 
existence  of  such  arrangements  is  an  impossibility  in  the  midst  of  the  prevalence 
of  speculation.  But  speculation  has  always  existed,  and  is  inherent  in  the  present 
commercial  system,  and  consequently  no  adequate  adjustment  of  supply  to  demand 
has  ever  been  had,  or  can  ever  be  had,  while  that  system  remains  in  operation.  It 
is  the  business  of  speculation,  and  hence  of  the  whole  mercantile  profession,  to 
confuse  and  becloud  the  knowledge  of  the  community  upon  this  very  vital  point  of 
their  interests,  and  to  derange  such  natural  adjustment  as  might  otherwise  grow 
up,  even  in  the  absence  of  full  knowledge  on  the  subject,  —  to  create  the  belief  that 
there  is  excess  or  deficiency  when  there  is  none,  and  to  cause  such  excess  or  defi- 
ciency in  fact  when  there  would  otherwise  be  none,  in  order  to  buy  cheap  and  sell 
dear.  Speculation  is  not  only  the  vital  element  of  the  existing  system  of  Commerce, 
but  it  will  always  exist  upon  any  basis  of  exchange  short  of  the  Cost  Principle.  The 
Cost  Principle  extinguishes  speculation,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  sequel.  Herein, 
then,  is  the  connection  between  these  two  of  the  five  conditions  of  social  order. 
(158.) 

37.  Let  us  return  now  to  The  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual.  This  has 
been  shown  in  the  previous  work  to  be  also  a  sine  qua  non  of  true  human  relations. 
The  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  which  is  merely  the  complete  enjoyment  of 
personal  liberty,  the  unimpeded  pursuit  by  every  individual,  of  his  own  happiness 
in  his  own  way,  and  the  development  of  his  own  inherent  selfhood,  is,  in  fact,  the 
apex,  or  culminating  point,  of  the  true  harmony  of  society.  It  was  also  demon- 
strated that  this  Sovereignty  cannot  possibly  be  indulged,  without  continual 
encroachments  upon  the  equal  Sovereignty  of  others,  in  any  other  mode  than  by  a 
complete  disintegration  of  interests, — a  total  abandonment  of  every  species  of 
combined  or  amalgamated  ownership,  or  administration  of  property.  Individual- 
ity of  Character  teaches,  in  this  manner,  that,  in  order  to  the  harmonious  exercise 
of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  a  disconnection  of  interests  must  be  h,ad, 
which  is  in  turn  nothing  else  than  another  application  of  the  same  all-pervading 
principle  of  Individuality.  Such,  then,  is  the  intimate  connection  between  Indivi- 
duality and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual.  (3,  30.) 

38.  But  again :  what  is  to  be  the  consequence  of  this  general  individualization 
of  interests?  Such  is,  to  a  very  great  extent,  the  order  of  the  actual  condition  of 
ownership  and  administration  in  our  existing  society,  which  is,  nevertheless,  re- 
plete with  social  evils.  Indeed,  hitherto  those  evils  have  been  attributed,  by  Social 
Reformers,  to  the  prevalent  individualization  of  interests  among  men,  more  than 
to  any  other  cause.  Hence  they  have  made  war  upon  it,  and  proposed  combined 
or  amalgamated  interests,  or  extensive  partnership  arrangements,  as  the  only  pos- 
sible means  of  securing  attractive  industry,  and  cooperation,  and  economy  in  the 
production  and  uses  of  wealth.     We  now  assert  that,  in  order  to  secure  wliat  is 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  61 

more  important  than  all  else,  the  possibility  of  the  free  exercise  of  Individual  Sov- 
ereignty, an  indispensable  condition  is  a  still  greater  amount  than  now  exists  of 
Individuality,  or /disconnection  in  the  property  relations  of  menTj  We  affirm  that 
nearly  all  that  there  is  good  in  existing  society  results  from  that  element.  What 
then  follows?  Do  we  abandon  the  high  aims  of  other  Socialists  in  other  respects? 
Is  all  thought  of  cooperation  and  the  economies  surrendered  by  us?  Clearly  they 
are,  unless  some  new  and  hitherto  undiscovered  element  is  brought  in.  To  go  back 
from  the  present  field  of  effort  of  the  Social  Reformers  to  so  much  of  Individual- 
ity as  can  exist  in  the  present  order  of  society,  and  stop  at  that  alone,  is  evidently 
to  retui'u  to  the  present  social  disorder,  in  which  it  is  sufficiently  demonstrated  by 
experience  that  the  exercise  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  —  the  point  we 
aim  to  secure — is  itself  just  as  impossible  as  the  other  conditions  desired.  But 
why  is  it  impossible?  For  the  reason  that  Individuality  of  interests,  upon  which  "f 
that  exercise  rests,  is  itself  only  partially  possible  in  a  social  state  in  which  there 
is  a  general  denial  of  equity  in  the  distribution  of  wealth,  —  equity  being  what  the 
Cost  Principle  alone  can  supply.  If  the  woman,  or  the  youth  under  age,  is  denied 
the  means  of  acquiring  an  independent  subsistence,  by  the  fact  that  they  receive 
less  than  equivalents  for  their  industrj^,  they  are  necessarily  thrown  into  a  state  of 
dependence  upon  others.  The  exercise  of  their  own  Sovereignty,  then,  is  obviously 
an  impossibility  for  them.  There  are  thousands  of  women,  for  example,  in  the 
higher  ranks  of  society,  who  never  felt  the  luxury  in  their  lives  of  spending  a  shil- 
ling that  they  knew  to  be  actually  their  own,  and  never  applied  to  their  fathers  or 
husbands  for  money  without  the  degrading  sense  of  beggary.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  husbands  and  fathers  are  involved,  by  the  same  false  pecuniary  relations,  in  an 
unnecessary  and  harassing  responsibility  for  the  conduct  and  expenditure  of  every 
member  of  their  families,  which  is  equally  destructive  of  their  own  freedom,  or 
the  exercise  of  their  own  Sovereignty  over  themselves.  It  is  the  same  in  the  exist- 
ing relations  of  the  poor  and  the  rich,  the  hireling  and  the  employer,  the  master 
and  the  slave,  and  in  nearly  all  the  ten  thousand  ramified  connections  of  men  in 
existing  society.  By  refusing  equity  in  the  distribution  of  wealth ;  by  reducing  .c^ 
the  earnings  of  women,  and  youths,  and  hired  men,  and  slaves  below  equivalents ; 
by  thus  grasping  power  over  others,  through  the  medium  of  an  undue  absorption 
of  the  products  of  their  industry,  —  the  members  of  community  are  brought  into 
the  relation  of  oppressors  and  oppressed,  and  both  are  together  and  alike  involved  — 
in  a  common  destiny  of  mutual  restrictions,  espionage,  suspicions,  heartburnings, 
open  destructive  collisions,  and  secret  hostility,  and  each  is  thereby  shorn  of  the 
possibility  of  exercising  his  prerogative  of  sovereign  control  over  his  own  actions. 
39.  Government  of  all  sorts  is  adverse  to  freedom.  It  destroys  the  freedom  of 
the  subject,  directly,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  is  a  subject;  and  destroys  equally 
the  freedom  of  the  governor,  indirecth',  by  devolving  on  him  the  necessity  of  over- 
looking and  attempting,  hopelessly,  to  regulate  the  conduct  of  others,  —  a  task 


62  The  Science  of  Society. 

never  yet  accomplished,  and  the  attempt  at  which  is  sufficiently  harassing  to  wear 
the  life  out  of  the  most  zealous  advocate  of  order.  With  the  greater  development 
of  the  individuals  to  be  governed  the  task  becomes  proportionally  the  more  one- 
rous, until,  in  our  day,  the  business  of  governing  grovrs  vulgar  from  its  excessive 
laboriousness. 

40.  All  combinations  of  interest  imply  and  involve  the  necessity  of  government, 
because  nature  demands  and  will  have  an  individual  lead.  The  denial  of  equity 
implies  and  involves  the  necessity  of  combinations  of  interest,  by  throwing  one 
part  of  the  community  into  a  state  of  dependence  upon  the  other,  authorizing  mu- 
tual supervision  and  criticism,  and  creating  mutual  restriction  and  hostility. 

41.  A  man  of  wealth  is  said,  among  us,  to  be  a  "man  in  independent  circum- 
stances"; but  in  truth  the  man  of  wealth  of  our  day  has  not  begun  to  conceive 
the  genuine  luxury  of  perfect  freedom,  —  a  freedom  which,  by  immutable  laws, 
can  never  be  realized  otherwise  than  by  a  prior  performance  of  exact  justice. 

42.  The  principles  here  asserted  are  universal.  The  same  causes  that  are  up- 
heaving the  thrones  of  Europe  are  disturbing  the  domestic  tranquillity  of  thousands 
of  families  among  us.  Red  Republicanism  in  France,  African  Slavery  in  America, 
and  the  mooted  question  of  the  rights  of  women  are  one  and  the  same  problem. 
It  is  the  sole  question  of  human  liberty,  or  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual;  and 
the  sole  basis  upon  which  the  exercise  of  that  Sovereignty  can  rest  is  Equity,  — 
the  rendering  to  each  of  that  which  is  his.  The  Cost  Principle  furnishes  the  law  of 
that  rendering.  That,  and  that  alone,  administers  Equity.  Hence  it  places  all  in  a 
condition  of  independence.  It  dissolves  the  relation  of  protectors  and  protected 
by  rendering  protection  unnecessary.  It  takes  away  the  necessity  resulting  from 
dependence  for  combinations  of  interest  and  government,  and  hence  for  mutual 
responsibility  for,  and  interference  with,  each  other's  deportment,  by  devolving  the 
Cost,  or  disagreeable  effects,  of  the  conduct  of  each  upon  himself,  —  submitting  him 
to  the  government  of  natural  consequences,  —  the  only  legitimate  government.  In 
fine,  the  Cost  Principle  in  operation  renders  possible,  harmless,  and  purely  bene- 
ficent the  universal  exercise  of  Individual  Sovereignty. 

43.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  Cost  Principle  underlies  Individuality,  or  the  dis- 
connection of  interests,  in  the  same  manner  as  Individuality  itself  underlies  and 
sustains  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual.  Hence,  again,  the  Cost  Principle  is  the 
basis  principle  or  foundation  upon  which  the  whole  fabric  of  social  harmony  rests, 
as  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  is,  as  has  been  said,  the  apex,  or  culminating 
point  of  the  same  fabric, — the  end  and  purpose  of  a  true  social  order.  Herein, 
then,  is  their  intimate  and  necessary  relation  to  each  other. 

44.  AVithout  Equity  as  a  basis  on  which  to  rest,  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual 
is  true  still  as  an  abstract  principle,  but  wholly  incapable  of  realization.  The  Indi- 
vidual Sovereign  is  so  de  jure,  but  not  de  facto.  He  is  a  Sovereign  without  domi- 
•uions,  ti-eated  as  a  pretender,  and  his  claims  ridiculed  by  the  actual  incumbent. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  63 

The  assertion  of  Sovereignty  is  a  phantom  and  a  delusion  until  the  Sovereign 
comes  to  his  own.  The  Cost  Principle,  as  the  essential  element  of  Equity,  gives  to  each 
his  own,  while  nothing  else  can.  Hence,  again,  the  intimate  and  necessary  relation 
between  these  two  principles. 

45.  The  doctrine  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  is  already  beginning  to 
develop  itself,  originally  in  an  abstract  form,  in  various  quarters,  and  to  take  a 
well-defined  shape  in  many  minds.  It  has  been  announced  in  substance,  recently, 
by  several  able  writers,  not  accompanied,  however,  by  the  indispensable  scientific 
limitation,  —  "to  be  exercised  at  his  own  cost," — without  which  it  is  a  principle 
of  anarchy  and  confusion,  instead  of  order.  To  preach  the  doctrine,  even  with  the 
limitation,  apart  from  its  basis  in  equity,  is  disturbing.  It  is  the  announcement 
to  slaves  of  their  inherent  right  to  be  free,  at  the  same  time  that  you  leave  them 
hopeless  of  the  realization  of  fi*eedom.  It  is  to  unfit  men  for  their  present  relations 
while  offering  them  no  means  of  inaugurating  truer  relations.  It  is  "to  curse 
men's  stars,  and  give  them  no  sun."  As  a  prelimmary  work  to  the  impending  re- 
construction, the  unsettling  of  men's  minds  may  be  a  necessity,  but  "  transitions 
are  pamf  ul,"  and  humanity  demands  that  the  interval  should  be  shortened  between 
inspiring  a  want  and  actualizing  the  conditions  of  its  gratification. 

46.  The  essential  condition  of  freedom  is  disconnection  —  individualization  — 
disintegration  of  interests.     The  essential  condition  of  disconnection  is  that  that 

be  given  to  each  which  belongs  to  each.  All  harmonic  unity  is  a  result  or  growth  ^  cV/ 
from  the  prior  individuality  of  the  separate  monads.  The  old  condition  of  society, 
of  fealty  and  protection,  and  consequent  mutual  amalgamation  or  combinations  of 
interests,  is  a  species  of  amorphous  conglomerate,  of  which  the  past  progress  of 
Reform  has  been  the  gradual  dissolution.  Reform  and  consequent  individualiza- 
tion is  the  tendency  of  this  age.  The  process  thus  commenced  must  go  on  to  com- 
pletion, until  every  man  and  every  woman,  and,  to  an  appropriate  extent,  every  .^ 
child,  is  a  perfect  Individual,  with  an  interest,  an  administration,  and  a  destiny 
solely  and  emphatically  under  his  or  her  own  control.  Out  of  that  condition  of 
things,  and  concurrently  with  it,  and  just  in  proportion  to  its  completeness,  will 
grow  a  more  intimate  harmony,  or,  if  you  will,  unity  of  sentiment,  and  human  af- 
fections, and  mutual  regard,  begotten  purely  of  attraction,  than  can  be  conceived 
of  in  the  midst  of  the  mutual  embarrassment  and  constraint  of  our  day,  and  of  our 
order  of  life.  It  is  only  when  each  individual  atom  of  the  dusky  mineral  is  disin- 
tegrated from  every  other,  held  in  complete  solution,  and  allowed  to  obey,  without 
let  or  hindrance,  the  law  of  its  own  interior  impulse,  that  each  shoots  spontane- 
ously to  its  own  place,  and  that  all  concur  in  voluntary  union  to  constitute  the 
pellucid  crystal  or  the  sparkling  diamond  of  the  mines.  So  in  human  affairs, 
what  is  feared  by  the  timid  conservative  as  the  dissolution  of  order  is,  in  fact, 
merely  the  preliminary  stage  of  the  true  harmonic  Constitution  of  Society,  —  the 
necessary  analysis  prior  to  its  genuine  and  legitimate  synthesis. 


64  The  Science  of  Society. 

i7.  The  conuectiou  of  the  Cost  Principle  with  the  Adaptation  of  the  Supply  to  the 
Demand  has  been  ah-eady  pointed  out.  The  nature  and  necessity  of  an  Equitable 
Money,  as  the  instrument  of  working  the  Cost  Principle,  will  be  demonstrated,  as 
previously  stated,  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  In  this  manner  the  interrelations  of 
this  circle  of  principles  are  established,  not  so  fully  as  the  natm-e  of  the  subject 
demands,  but  as  much  so  as  the  incidental  character  of  the  present  notice  will 
permit. 

48.  But,  although  it  may  be  admitted  that  we  gain  something  of  freedom  in  the 
action  of  the  Individual  by  avoiding  combinations  of  interest,  do  we  not  lose,  by 
that  means,  the  benefits  of  cooperation  and  the  economies  of  the  large  scale?  This 
question  is  important,  and  demands  a  satisfactory  and  conclusive  answer.  That 
answer  is  given  in  the  whole  treatise  which  follows.  It  is  admitted  that  heretofore 
no  other  means  for  secm'ing  those  ends  have  been  known.  It  is  asserted,  however, 
that  principles  are  now  known  by  which  all  the  higher  results  of  social  harmony 
can  be  achieved  without  that  fatal  feature  of  combination,  which  has  promised, 
but  failed,  to  realize  them.  Hence  we  draw  a  new  and  technical  distinction  be- 
tween Combination  and  Cooperatioji,  and  insist  on  that  distinction  with  great  rigor. 

We  assert  that  the  true  principles  of  Social  Science  are  totally  averse  to  combina- 
tions of  interest.  At  the  same  time  we  admit  freely  that  any  principles  which 
should  not  secure  the  greatest  conceivable  amount  of  Cooperation  would  fail  en- 
tirely of  solving  the  problem  in  question. 

49.  By  Combinations  are  meant  partnership  interests  and  community  of  pro- 
perty or  administration,  such  as  confuse,  in  any  degree,  or  obliterate  the  lines  of 
Individuality  in  the  ownership  or  use  of  property. 

50.  By  Cooperation,  or  cooperative  relations,  is  meant  such  an  arrangement  of 
the  property  and  industrial  interests  of  the  different  Individuals  of  the  community 
that  each,  in  pursuing  his  own  pleasure  or  benefit,  contributes  incidentally  to  the 
pleasm'e  or  benefit  of  the  others. 

51.  We  assume  the  burden  of  proof.  We  admit  the  obligation  resting  upon  us 
to  establish  the  position  that  extreme  Individuality  or  disconnection  of  interests 
is  compatible  —  contrary  to  all  previous  opinion — with  as  thorough  and  extended 
Cooperation  as  can  exist  in  any  system  of  Combinations  whatsoever. 

52.  It  must  not  be  understood  that  disconnection  of  interests  implies,  in  the 
slightest  degree,  an  isolation  of  persons.  A  hundred  or  a  thousand  men  may  be 
engaged  in  the  same  shop,  and  still  their  interests  be  entirely  individualized. 
Such  is  the  case  now  under  the  present  wages  system.  The  laborers  in  a  manu- 
facturing establishment,  for  example,  have  no  common  interest,  no  partnership,  no 
combined  responsibilities.  Their  interests  are  completely  individualized,  and  yet 
they  work  together.  This  is  all  right.  It  is  not  at  this  point  that  the  evil  lurks 
which  the  Socialist  seeks,  or  should  seek,  to  remedy.  Besides  this,  these  men  and 
women  now  cooperate  completely  in  their  labor.     They  all  work  at  distinct  func- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  65 

tions  to  a  common  end,  which  is  Cooperation.  The  evil  to  be  remedied  is  neither 
in  their  individuality  of  interests  nor  in  any  want  of  Cooperation.  It  is  solely  in 
the  want  of  mutuality  in  the  results  of  that  Cooperation,  — in  other  words,  in  the 
want  of  Equity, — in  the  want  of  a  regulating  principle  which  would  secure  to  each 
the  full,  legitimate  results  of  his  own  labor.  The  difficulty  is  that  the  whole  hun- 
dred, or  the  whole  thousand  men  now  labor  and  cooperate,  not  for  their  own  bene- 
fit, but  for  the  benefit  of  one,— the  employer.  Under  the  operation  of  the  Cost 
Principle  their  interests  vrill  be  individual  as  they  are  now;  they  will  cooperate  as 
they  do  now,  or,  rather,  more  perfectly,  but  they  will  cooperate  for  their  own  mu- 
tual benefit, — the  employer,  or  chief,  receiving,  like  all  others,  merely  the  equi- 
valent and  reward  of  his  own  labor. 

53.  I  feel  painfully  that  by  attempting  such  a  condensation  of  these  matters  I 
am  liable  to  render  myself  wofuUy  obscure.  I  vrill  take  a  special  occasion  to  show 
that  "Equitable  Commerce"  is  not  the  antagonist  of  any  other  of  the  great  Re- 
forms proposed,  but  that  it  comes  in  as  the  harmonizer  of  the  whole.  If  it  be 
claimed  by  his  admirers  that  Fourier  has  shown  "the  what"  of  harmonic  social  re- 
lations, Warren  shows  "  the  how  "  to  realize  such  relations,  in  which  last  respect 
Social  Reformers  generally  have  been  lamentably  deficient. 

54.  I  will  conclude  by  stating  how  the  Cost  Principle,  in  its  operation,  will  ad- 
dress itself  to  the  different  classes  of  community,  so  that  those  who  feel  no  demand 
need  not  be  over-burdened  by  the  supply. 

The  whole  community  may  be  divided,  under  this  system, — not  according  to  the 
old  classification  of  Political  Economy  into  producers  and  non-producers,  —  but  in- 
to those  who  receive  more  than  equivalents  for  their  labor  and  those  who  receive 
less  than  equivalents,  —  those  who  perform  no  productive  labor  and  receive  a  living 
or  more  than  that  being  included  in  the  former  class. 

Of  these  classes,  the  latter  —  all  those  who  receive  less  than  equivalents,  includ- 
ing the  great  mass  of  simple  operatives  who  have  not  the  aid  of  capital — have  an 
immediate  and  pecuniary  interest  in  at  once  adopting  the  principle. 

The  remaining  class — those  who  receive  more  than  equivalents  —  have  no  such 
interest,  but  contrariwise.  Of  these  only  such  as  are  moved  by  considerations  of 
benevolence  or  justice,  or  the  love  of  oi'der  and  harmony  in  human  relations,  or  by 
the  sense  of  insecurity  even  for  the  rich  in  the  existing  order  of  society,  or  by  an 
appreciation  of  the  higher  gratifications  of  taste  through  the  general  prevalence  of 
refinement,  luxury,  and  wealth,  have  any  demand  for  this  new  principle  of  com- 
merce; and  so  soon  as  those  with  whom  such  considerations  are  not  potential  have 
read  enough  to  know  how  equivalents  can  be  measured,  and  that  they  are  now  on 
the  gaining  side,  they  will  need  no  further  supply  of  this  reform,  and  the  reform 
must  go  on  without  them,  as  it  best  may.  There  are  only  distant  advantages  to 
offer  them,  and  as  they  have  the  immediate  advantages  in  their  own  hands,  they 
nmst  be  expected  to  do  the  best  they  can  to  retain  them.  The  peculiarity  of  the 
movement  is,  however,  that  it  does  not  proceed  by  their  leave.) 


'66  The  /Science  of  Society, 


CHAPTER  n. 

EQUITY  AND  THE  LABOB  NOTE. 

55.  Human  beings  are  subject  to  various  wants.  Some  of  these  wants  have  to 
be  supplied  to  sustain  life  at  all;  others  to  render  life  comfortable  and  happy.  If 
an  individual  produced,  with  no  aid  from  others,  all  the  numerous  things  requisite 
to  supply  his  wants,  the  things  which  he  produced — his  products — would  belong 
to  himself.  He  would  have  no  occasion  to  exchange  with  others,  and  they  would 
have  no  equitable  claims  upon  him  for  any  thing  which  was  his. 

56.  But  such  is  not  the  case.  We  all  want  continually  for  our  own  support  or 
comfort  those  things  which  are  produced  by  others.  Hence  we  exchange  products. 
Hence  comes  trade, — buying  and  selling,  —  Commerce,  including  the  hiring  of  the 
labor  of  others.  Trade  is,  therefore,  a  necessity  of  human  society,  and  consists  of 
the  exchange  of  the  labor,  or  the  products  of  the  labor,  of  one  person,  for  the  la- 
bor, or  the  products  of  the  labor,  of  another  person. 

57.  It  is  clear,  if  this  exchange  is  not  equal,  if  one  party  gives  more  of  his  own 
labor — either  in  the  form  of  labor  or  product — than  he  gets  of  the  labor  of  the 
other, — either  in  the  form  of  labor  or  product,  — that  he  is  oppressed,  and  becomes, 
so  far  as  this  inequality  goes,  the  slave  or  subject  of  the  other.  He  has,  just  so 
far,  to  expend  his  labor,  not  for  his  own  benefit,  but  for  the  benefit  of  another.  To 
produce  good  or  beneficent  results  from  trade,  therefore,  the  exchanges  should  be 
equal.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  essential  element  of  beneficent  Commerce  is 
EQUITY,  or  that  which  is  just  and  equal  between  man  and  man. 

58.  The  fimdamental  inquiry,  therefore,  upon  the  answer  to  which,  alone,  a 
Science  of  Commerce  can  be  erected,  is  the  true  measure  of  Equity,  or,  what  is  the 
same  thing,  the  measure  oi  price  in  the  exchange  of  labor  and  commodities.  This 
question  is  one  of  immense  importance,  and,  strange  to  say,  it  is  one  which  has 
never  received  the  slightest  consideration,  which  has  never,  indeed,  been  raised 
either  by  Political  Economists,  Legislators,  or  Moralists.  The  only  question  dis- 
cussed has  been,  what  it  is  which  now  regulates  price,  —  never  what  should  regulate 
it.  It  is  admitted,  nevertheless,  that  the  present  system  of  Commerce  distributes 
wealth  most  unjustly.  Why,  then,  should  we  not  ask  the  question,  What  princi- 
ple or  system  of  Commerce  would  distribute  it  justly?  Why  not  apply  our  philo- 
sophy to  discovering-  the  true  system,  rather  than  apply  it  to  the  investigation  of 
the  laws  according  to  which  the  false  system  works  out  its  deleterious  results. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  67 

59.  Simple  Equity  is  tliis,  that  so  much  of  your  labor  as  I  take  and  apply  to  my 
benefit,  so  much  of  my  labor  ought  I  to  give  you  to  be  applied  to  YOUR  benefit;  and,  con- 
sequently, if  I  take  a  product  of  your  labor  instead  of  the  labor  itself,  and  pay  you  in  a 
product  of  my  labor,  the  commodity  which  I  give  you  ought  to  be  one  in  which  there  is 
JUST  AS  MUCH  LABOR  as  there  is  in  the  product  which  I  receive. 

The  same  idea  may  be  differently  presented  in  this  manner.  It  is  Equity  that 
every  individual  should  sustain  just  as  much  of  the  common  burden  of  life  as  has  to  be 
sustained  by  axy  body  on  his  account.  Such  would  be  the  result  if  each  produced 
for  himself  all  that  he  consumed,  as  in  the  first  case  supposed  above ;  and  the  fact 
that  it  is  found  convenient  to  exchange  labor  and  the  products  of  labor  does  not 
vary  the  definition  of  Equity  in  the  least. 

60.  To  a  well-regulated  mind  the  preceding  propositions  present  an  obvious 
and  self-evident  truth,  like  the  proposition  that  two  and  two  make  four,  demand- 
ing no  other  proof  than  the  statement  itself.  Yet  simple  and  undeniable  as  they 
appear,  when  thus  distinctly  propounded,  the  consequences  which  inevitably  fol- 
low from  the  principle  which  they  aflfirm  are  ultra-radical  and  revolutionary  of  all 
our  existing  commercial  relations,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  subsequent  chapters  of 
this  work.  They  contain  merely,  however,  a  statement  of  the  Principle  of  Equity. 
They  leave  the  question  of  the  Method  of  making  an  application  of  the  principle 
still  open.  They  do  not  furnish  the  means  of  arriving  at  the  measure  of  Equity. 
This,  then,  is  the  next  step  in  the  investigation. 

Gl.  If  I  exchange  my  labor  against  yours,  the  first  measure  that  suggests  itself 
for  the  relative  amount  of  labor  performed  by  each  is  tj;ie  length  of  time  that  each  ' 
is  employedr*  If  all  pursuits-were  equally  laborious,  or,  in  other  words,  if  aU  labor 
were  equally  repugnant  or  toilsome,  —  if  it  cost  equal  amounts  of  human  suffering 
or  endurance  for  each  hour  of  time  employed  in  every  different  pursuit,  then  it 
would  be  exact  Equity  to  exchange  one  hour  of  labor  for  one  other  hour  of  labor,  ^ 
or  a  product  which  has  in  it  one  hour  of  labor  for  another  product  which  has  in  it 
one  hour  of  labor  the  world  over.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  case.  Some  kinds  of 
labor  are  exceedingly  repugnant,  while  others  are  less  so,  and  others  still  more 
pleasing  and  attractive.  There  are  diffei-ences  of  this  sort  which  are  agreed  upon 
by  all  the  world.  For  example,  sweeping  the  filth  from  the  streets,  or  standing  in 
the  cold  water  and  dredging  the  bottom  of  a  stream,  would  be,  by  general  consent, 
regarded  as  more  repugnant,  or,  in  the  common  language  on  the  subject,  harder 
work,  than  laying  out  a  garden,  or  measuring  goods. 

But  besides  this  general  difference  in  the  hardness  or  repugnance  of  work,  there 
are  individual  differences  in  the  feeling  toward  different  kinds  of  labor  which 
make  the  repugnance  or  attraction  of  one  person  for  a  particular  kind  of  labor  quite 
different  from  that  of  another.  Labor  is  repugnant  or  otherwise,  therefore,  more 
or  less,  according  to  the  individualities  of  persons. 

If  you  inquire  among  a  dozen  men  what  each  would  prefer  to  do,  you  will  find 


68  The  Science  of  Society. 

the  greatest  diversity  of  choice,  and  you  will  be  surprised  to  find  some  choosing 
such  occupations  as  are  the  least  attractive  to  you.  It  is  the  same  among  women 
as  respects  the  labors  which  they  pursue. 

62.  It  follows  from  these  facts  that  Equity  in  the  exchange  of  labor,  or  the  pro- 
ducts of  labor,  cannot  be  arrived  at  by  measuring  the  labor  of  different  persons  by 
the  hour  merely.  Equity  is  the  equality  of  burdens  according  to  the  requirements 
of  each  person,  or,  in  other  words,  the  assumption  of  as  much  bm'deu  by  each  per- 
son as  has  to  be  assumed  by  somebody,  on  his  account,  so  that  no  one  shall  be 
living  by  imposing  burdens  on  others.  Time  is  one  element  in  the  measurement 
of  the  burdens  of  labor,  but  the  different  degrees  of  repugnance  in  the  different 
kinds  of  labor  prevent  it  from  being  the  only  one.  Hence  it  follows  that  there 
must  be  some  means  of  measuring  this  repugnance  itself,  —  in  other  words,  of  deter- 
mining the  relative  hardness  of  different  kinds  of  work, — before  we  can  arrive  at 
an  equitable  system  of  exchanging  labor  and  the  products  of  labor.  If  we  could 
measure  the  general  average  of  repugnance, — that  is,  if  we  could  determine  how 
people  generally  regard  the  dift'erent  kinds  of  labor  as  to  their  agreeableness  or  dis- 
agi'eeableness, — still  that  would  not  insure  Equity  in  the  exchange  between  indi- 
viduals, on  account  of  those  individualities  of  character  and  taste  which  have  been 
adverted  to.  It  is  an  equality  of  burden  between  the  two  individuals  who  ex- 
change which  must  be  arrived  at,  and  that  must  be  according  to  the  estimate  which 
each  honestly  forms  of  the  repugnance  to  him  or  her  of  the  particular  labor  which 
he  or  she  performs,  and  which,  or  the  products  of  which,  are  to  be  exchanged. 

63.  It  is  important  for  reasons  of  practical  utility  to  arrive  at  a  general  or 
average  estimate  of  the  relative  repugnance  of  different  kinds  of  labor,  especially 
of  the  most  common  kinds,  and  that  is  done  under  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Prin- 
ciple, as  hereafter  pointed  out  (195) ;  but,  as  we  have  seen,  if  we  had  already 
arrived  at  it,  it  would  not  be  a  sufficiently  accurate  measure  of  Equity  to  be  applied 
between  individuals ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  this  average  itself  can  only  be  based 
upon  individual  estimates.  The  average  which  now  exists  in  the  public  mind,  by 
which  it  is  understood  that  field  labor,  in  cultivating  grain,  for  example,  is  neither 
the  hardest  nor  the  easiest  kind  of  work,  and  that  sewing  or  knitting  is  not  so  re- 
pugnant as  washing  or  scrubbing,  rests  upon  the  general  observation  of  individual 
preferences. 

64.  It  follows,  therefore,  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  measure  of  Equity, 
and  the  adoption  of  a  scientific  system  of  commerce :  1.  That  some  method  must 
be  devised  for  comparing  the  relative  repugnance  of  different  kinds  of  labor.  2. 
That,  in  making  the  comparison,  each  individual  must  make  his  or  her  own  esti- 
mate of  the  repugnance  to  him  or  her  of  the  labor  which  he  or  she  performs,  and 
3.  That  there  should  be  a  sufficient  motive  in  the  results  or  consequences  to  in- 
sure an  honest  exercise  of  the  judgment,  and  an  honest  expression  of  the  real  feel- 
ings of  each,  in  making  the  comparison. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  69 

65.  I. —  That  some  method  should  be  devised  for  comparing  the  relative  repugnance 
of  different  kinds  of  labor.  This  is  extremely  simple.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to 
agree  upon  some  particular  kind  of  labor,  the  average  repugnance  of  which  is 
most  easily  ascertained,  or  the  most  nearly  fixed,  and  use  it  as  a  standard  of  com- 
parison, a  sort  of  yard-stick  for  measuring  the  relative  repugnance  of  other  kinds  of 
labor.  For  example,  in  the  Western  American  States  it  is  found  that  the  most 
appropriate  kind  of  labor  to  be  assumed  as  a  standard  with  which  to  compare  all 
other  kinds  of  labor  is  corn-raising.  It  is  also  found,  upon  extensive  investigation, 
that  the  average  product  of  that  kind  of  labor,  in  that  region,  is  twenty  pounds  of 
corn  to  the  hour.  If,  then,  blacksmithing  is  reckoned  as  one  half  harder  work  than 
corn-raising,  it  will  be  rated  (by  the  blacksmith  himself)  at  thirty  pounds  of  corn  to 
the  hour.  If  shoemaking  be  reckoned  as  one  quarter  less  onerous  than  corn-raising, 
it  will  be  rated  at  fifteen  pounds  of  corn  to  the  hour.  In  this  manner  the  idea  of 
corn-raising  is  used  to  measure  the  relative  repugnance  of  all  kinds  of  labor. 

66.  II.  —  That,  in  making  the  comparison,  each  individual  must  make  his  or  her  own 
estimate  of  the  repugnance  to  him  or  her  of  the  particular  labor  which  lie  or  she  performs. 
This  condition  must  be  secured,  both  for  the  reasons  already  stated,  and  because 
another  equally  important  principle  in  the  true  science  of  society  is  the  Sovereignty 
of  the  Individual.  The  Individual  must  be  kept  absolutely  above  all  institutions. 
He  must  be  left  free  even  to  abandon  the  principles  whenever  he  chooses.  The 
only  constraint  must  be  in  the  attractive  nature  and  results  of  true  principles. 

67.  III.  —  That  there  should  be  a  sufficient  motive  in  the  results  or  consequences  of 
compliance  tcith  these  principles  to  insure  an  honest  exercise  of  the  judgment,  and  an 
honest  expression  of  the  real  feeling  of  each  in  making  his  estimate  of  the  relative  re- 
pugnance of  his  labor.  The  existence  of  such  a  motive  can  only  be  shown  by  a 
view  of  the  general  results  of  this  entire  system  of  principles  upon  the  condition 
of  society,  and  upon  the  particular  interests  of  the  individual.  These  results  must 
be  gathered  from  a  thorough  study  of  the  whole  subject,  in  order  to  establish  this 
point  conclusively  to  the  philosophic  mind.  The  force  of  a  public  sentiment  recti- 
fied by  the  knowledge  of  true  principles  will  not  be  lost  sight  of  by  such  a  mind. 
(220.)  The  particular  remedial  results  of  deviations  from  the  principle  of  Equity 
upon  the  interests  of  the  individual  will  be  specifically  pointed  out  in  the  sub- 
sequent pages.  (72-76.) 

68.  If  an  exchange  could  be  always  made  and  completed  on  the  spot,  each  party 
giving  and  receiving  an  equivalent, — that  is,  an  amount  of  labor,  or  a  product  of 
labor,  which  had  in  it  an  amount  of  repugnance  or  cost  just  equal  to  that  in  the 
laborer  product  for  which  it  was  given  or  received,  —  the  whole  problem  of  ex- 
changes would  be  solved  by  the  simple  method  just  stated.  There  would  in  that 
case  be  no  necessity  for  a  circulating  medium,  or  for  any  thing  to  perform  the  part 
which  is  performed  by  money  in  our  existing  commerce.  But  such  is  not  the  case. 
Articles  are  not  always  at  hand  which  have  in  them  the  same  amount  of  cost;  in- 


70  TJie  Science  of  Society. 

deed,  it  is  the  rare  exception  that  exact  equivalents  can  be  made  upon  the  spot  in 
commodities  which  are  mutually  wanted.  Besides,  it  may  frequently  happen  that 
I  want  something  from  you,  either  labor  or  the  products  of  labor,  when  you,  at  the 
time,  want  nothing  of  me.  In  such  a  case  the  exchange  is  only  partially  completed 
on  the  spot,  the  remaming  part  waiting  to  he  completed  at  some  future  time,  by  the 
performance  of  an  equivalent  amount  of  labor,  or  the  delivery  of  products  or  com- 
modities having  in  them  an  equivalent  amount  of  labor. 

69.  In  such  a  case  as  that  just  stated,  it  is  proper  that  the  party  who  does  not 
make  his  part  of  the  exchange  on  the  spot  should  give  an  evidence  of  his  obligation 
to  do  so  at  some  future  time,  whenever  called  upon,  —  and  this  is  the  origin  of  what 
is  called  the  Labor  Note,  which  is  the  form  assumed  by  "  Equitable  Money,"  the 
fourth  among  the  elements  of  the  solution  of  the  Problem  of  Society.  The  party 
who  remains  indebted  to  the  other  gives  his  own  note,  provided  the  other  consents  to 
receive  it,  for  an  equivalent  amount  of  his  own  labor,  or  else  of  the  standard  com- 
modity,— say  so  many  pounds  of  corn,  specifying  in  the  note  the  kind  of  labor, 
and  the  alternative.  As  it  may  happen  that  the  party  receiving  the  Labor  Note 
may  not  require  the  labor  itself,  or  that  it  may  be  inconvenient  for  the  party  pro- 
mising to  perform  it  when  it  is  wanted,  it  is  provided  that  the  obligation  may  be 
discharged,  at  the  option  of  the  party  giving  the  note,  in  the  standard  commodity 
instead.  On  the  other  hand,  although  the  party  receiving  the  note  may  not  want 
the  labor  himself,  yet  some  person  with  whom  he  deals  may  want  it,  and  hence  he 
can  pass  the  note  to  a  thii-d  party  who  is  willing  to  receive  it  for  an  equivalent 
amount  of  labor,  or  products,  received  from  him.  In  this  manner  the  Labor  Note 
begins  to  circulate  from  one  to  another,  and  the  aggregate  of  Labor  Notes  in  cir- 
culation in  a  neighborhood  constitutes  the  neighborhood  circulating  medium, 
dispensing,  so  far  as  this  Equitable  Commerce  extends,  with  money  altogether, 
or,  rather,  introducing  a  new  species  of  paper-money,  based  solely  upon  individual 
responsibility. 

70.  The  use  of  the  Labor  Note  is  not,  as  has  been  already  observed,  strictly  a 
principle  of  Equity,  and  partakes  more  of  the  nature  of  a  contrivance  than  any  other 
feature  of  the  system  of  Equitable  Commerce ;  but  yet  it  seems  to  be  a  necessary 
instrument  to  be  employed  in  the  practical  working  of  the  system.  The  Theory  of 
Equity  is  complete  without  it,  but  the  necessity  for  its  use  arises  from  the  practical 
fact  that  exchanges  cannot  in  every  case  be  completed  on  the  spot.  Hence  a  cir- 
culating medium  of  some  sort  is  indispensable,  and  in  order  that  the  system  may 
remain  throughout  an  equitable  one,  in  practice  as  well  as  in  theory,  the  circulat- 
ing medium  must  be  based  on  equivalents  of  labor  or  cost  between  individuals. 

The  features  of  the  Labor  Note  are  peculiar,  and  the  points  of  dilierence  between 
it  and  ordinary  money  are  numerous  and  far  more  important  than  at  first  appears. 
They  are  as  follows : 

71.  I.  —  Its  cheapness  and  abundance.     As  it  costs  nothing  but  the  paper  upon 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  71 

which  it  is  written,  printed,  or  engraved,  and  the  labor  of  executing  and  signing 
it,  it  may  be  said,  for  practical  purposes,  to  cost  nothing.  The  great  fault  of  our 
existing  currency  is  its  expensiveness  and  scarcity.  It  is  upon  these  properties 
that  the  whole  system  of  interest  or  rent  on  money  is  founded,  a  tribute  to  which 
the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor  have  to  submit,  whenever  they  want  a  portion  of  the 
circulating  medium  to  use.  To  show  that  this  is  a  real  and  frightful  evil  in  gold 
and  silver  currency,  and  consequently  in  all  money  of  which  gold  and  silver  are  the 
basis,  demands  a  distinct  treatise  on  money.  Under  the  Labor  Note  system,  every 
man  who  has  in  his  possession  his  ability  to  work,  or  his  character,  or  in  these  ele- 
ments variously  combined,  the  assurance  of  responsibility  or  the  basis  of  credit, 
has  always  by  him  as  much  money  as  he  needs.  He  has  only  to  take  his  pen  from 
his  pocket  and  make  it  at  will.  There  can  be  no  such  cases  as  happen  now,  of  re- 
sponsible men  worth  their  tens  or  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  in  property,  but 
absolutely  destitute  of  money,  and  forced  to  submit  to  the  shaving  process  of  bank- 
ers, brokers,  and  Jews. 

72.  II. — Being  hosed  on  individual  credit,  it  makes  every  man  his  own  banker.  This 
feature  of  the  Labor  Note  system  is  substantially  contained  in  the  preceding  state- 
ment, but  the  more  important  consequences  of  this  fact  remain  to  be  pointed  out. 
Bankers  are  proverbial  for  their  anxiety  to  maintain  their  credit  unimpaired  and 
unsuspected.  With  them  distrust  is  synonymous  with  the  ruin  of  their  business. 
Under  this  system  every  man,  woman,  boy,  and  girl,  assuming  the  character  of  a 
banker,  becomes  equally  solicitous  about  the  maintenance  of  his  or  her  credit. 
Upon  the  goodness  of  their  reputation  for  punctuality  of  redemption  depends  the 
fact  of  their  always  having  change  in  their  pockets.  Honesty  comes  then  to  a 
good  market,  and  finds  at  once  a  pecuniary  reward.  If  one's  credit  is  suffered  to 
fall  into  disrepute  among  his  neighbors,  he  is  left  positively  without  money  or  the 
means  of  obtaining  it,  and  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  making  all  his  exchanges  on 
the  spot.  He  is  put  pecuniarily  into  Coventry.  Both  the  superior  advantages  of 
possessing  credit,  and  the  greater  inconvenience  of  losing  it,  conspire,  therefore,  to 
install  the  reign  of  commercial  honor  and  common  honesty  in  the  most  minute  and 
ordinary  transactions  of  life  among  the  whole  people.  The  moralist  who  is  wise 
will  perceive  herein  an  engine  of  reform  immensely  important  to  subserve  his  ends. 
This  result  is  already  satisfactorily  proven  in  practice  at  one  point,  where  this  sys- 
tem of  exchanges  has  been  introduced,  in  the  fact  that  every  person  is  anxious  to 
obtain  the  Labor  Notes  of  others  for  use  and  to  abstain,  so  far  as  he  can,  from  is- 
suing his  own ;  as  well  as  in  the  general  solicitude  for  the  preservation  of  credit, 
aud  the  general  promptitude  in  redeeming  the  notes  that  are  issued.  Notwith- 
standing the  fact  that,  in  so  small  a  circle,  it  is  only  a  part  of  the  pecuniary  trans- 
actions of  the  community  which  can  be  carried  on  upon  the  Cost  Principle, 
— ordinary  money  having  to  be  used  in  all  transactions  with  the  world  outside,  aud  even 
icithin  the  community,  for  those  things  which  were  purchased  outside  and  which  cost 
money,  —  still  these  results  have  been  strikingly  exhibited  in  practice. 


72  The  Science  of  Society. 

73.  III.  —  It  combines  the  properties^  of  a  circulating  medium  and  a  means  of  credit. 
These  qualities  have  been  substantially  stated  above  as  separate  attributes  of  the 
Labor  Note  system;  but  the  advantage  of  their  combination  in  one  and  the  same 
instrumentality  of  Commerce  is  worthy  of  a  distinct  observation.  At  the  end  of 
the  third  year  from  the  commencement  of  the  settlement  above  referred  to,  there 
were  eighteen  families  having  two  lots  of  ground,  each  with  houses — nine  brick 
and  nine  wooden  ones  —  and  gardens  of  their  own,  nearly  the  whole  of  which  cap- 
ital was  created  by  them  during  that  period.  The  families,  without  exception, 
came  there  quite  destitute  of  worldly  accmuulations.  Thirty  dollars  in  money 
was  probably  the  largest  sum  possessed  by  any  of  them.  Others  landed  there  with 
five  dollars  and  ten  as  the  whole  of  their  fortune.  They  were  nearly  all  families 
who  had  been  exhausted  in  means  as  well  as  broken  down  and  discom-aged  in  spi- 
rit by  successive  failures  of  commmiity,  or  association  attempts  at  reform.  The 
success  they  have  thus  achieved,  in  so  short  a  time,  has  resulted  entirely  from  their 
own  labor,  exchanged  so  far  as  requisite  and  practicable  upon  the  Cost  or  Equit- 
able Principle,  facilitated  by  the  instrumentality  of  the  Labor  Note. 

74.  A  family  arriving  without  means  at  the  location  of  a  village  operating  on 
the  Equitable  Principle,  if  their  appearance  or  known  character  inspu-es  sufficient 
confidence  in  the  minds  of  the  previous  settlers,  can  immediately  commence  opera- 
tions, not  upon  charity,  but  upon  their  own  credit,  issuing  their  Labor  Notes  — 
men,  women,  and  youths  —  so  far  as  their  several  kinds  of  labor  are  in  demand^ 
procuring  thereby  the  labor  of  the  whole  village  in  all  the  various  trades  necessary 
to  construct  them  an  edifice,  and  supply  them  with  the  necessaries  of  life,  so  far  as 
the  size  of  the  circle  renders  it  possible  to  produce  them  on  the  spot.  Labor,  even  prospec- 
tive labor,  thus  becomes  immediate  capital.  Interest  and  profits  being  discarded, 
the  amount  of  capital  thus  existing  in  labor  is  greatly  augmented.  The  fact  that 
the  labor  of  the  women  and  children  is  equally  remunerated  with  that  of  the  men 
again  adds  to  the  amount  of  combined  capital  in  the  family.  By  the  operation  of 
these  several  causes,  a  family  which  has  been  struggling  for  years,  in  the  midst  of 
the  competition  of  ordinary  Commerce  and  the  oppressions  of  capital,  with  no  suc- 
cess beyond  barely  holding  on  to  life,  may  become  in  a  short  time  independent  and 
well  provided.  Such  are  the  legitimate  workings  of  the  true  system  of  Commerce, 
and  so  far  as  it  has  been  tested  by  practical  operations  the  results  have  entirely 
corroborated  the  theory. 

75.  [The  settlers  at  Trialville,  however,  would  not  wish  any  thing  said  upon 
this  subject  to  be  construed  into  any  pledge  on  their  part  to  supply  any  advantages 
to  individuals  coming  among  them.  There  is  no  community  or  society  there  in  the 
corporate  sense  of  the  term.  Every  Individual  judges  for  himself  upon  what  terms 
he  will  treat  with  others,  how  far  he  will  receive  their  Labor  Notes,  or  whether  he 
will  receive  them  at  all.  Persons  going  there  must  make  up  their  own  opinion 
whether  there  is  a  sufficient  demand  for  the  kinds  of  labor  which  they  can  perform, 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  73 

whether  their  own  uprightness  of  character  and  punctuality  in  the  discharge  of 
obligations  are  such  as  to  inspire  and  maintain  confidence,  and,  indeed,  upon  every 
point  relating  to  the  subject.     No  guarantees  whatever  are  given,  except  such  as 
the  Individual  finds  in  the  principles  themselves,  while  it  is  left  entirely  to  the  de- 
cision of  the  Individual  himself,  on  every  occasion,  whether  even  he  will  act  on  the 
principles  or  not.     There  is  no  compact  or  constitution,  —  no  laivs,  by-laws,  rules   or^ 
regulations  of  any  sort.     The  Individual  is  kept  above  all  institutions,  out  of  deference    ^  ^ 
to  the  principle  of  Individuality  and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  which  belong  just  ■ 
as  much  to  the  fundamental  basis  of  true  society  as  the  Cost  Principle  itself.     There^ 
must,  therefore,  be  no  reliance  on  express  or  implied  pledges,  nor  upon  any  species 
of  cooperation  tvhich  is  contracted  for,  and  binding  by  agreement.     Besides,  the  extent 
to  which  the  advantages  of  the  Labor  Xote  can  be  rendered  available  is  Ihnited  in 
the  beginning  by  the  sm.allness  of  the  circle,  by  the  prevalence  of  pursuits  unfavor- 
able to  the  mutual  exchange  of  labor  or  products,  and  by  numerous  other  considera- 
tions, all  of  which  must  be  judged  of  by  the  Individual  upon  his  own  responsibility, 
and  at  his  own  risk.] 

76.  When  credit  is  raised  upon  the  issue  of  Labor  Notes,  it  has  the  advantage 
of  being  based  upon  that  which  the  party  has  it  in  his  power  to  give.  He  has  in 
his  own  vaults  the  means  of  redemption.  If  a  laboring  man  promises  money,  his 
ability  to  pay  the  money  depends  upon  the  precarious  chance  of  his  finding  a  de- 
mand for  his  labor.  If  he  gives  a  Labor  Note,  which  is  to  be  redeemed  in  labor, 
he  secures  the  means  of  paying  by  the  act  of  entering  into  the  obligation.  Even 
if  the  payment  is  demanded  in  the  alternative,  and  is  discharged  in  the  standard 
commodity  itself  (corn),  or,  what  is  more  likely,  in  other  commodities,  measured  by 
corn,  or  in  the  Labor  Notes  of  the  others,  still  all  of  these  are  procured  by  the  ex- 
change of  his  own  labor,  and  it  will  appear,  upon  a  full  exposition  of  the  system, 
that  under  the  operation  of  these  principles  labor  will  always  be  in  demand,  so  that  **— 
no  laborer  need  ever  be  out  of  employment.  (161.)  As  a  result  of  this  fact  every 
man  can  know  positively,  beforehand,  to  precisely  what  extent  he  can,  with  safety, 
issue  his  Labor  Notes,  the  contingencies  of  sickness  and  death  alone  excepted. 
Hence  dishonesty  finds  no  subterfuges.  In  the  case  of  death  the  heirs  possess  the 
property,  if  there  be  property,  for  which  the  notes  were  given.  To  refuse  to  re- 
deem them  is  a  palpable  ascertained  fraud,  and  the  same  powerful  motives  which 
have  been  shown  as  operating  on  the  original  debtor  to  insure  honesty  and  punc- 
tuality operate  also  upon  them.  If  they  evade  the  obligation,  they,  too,  are  placed 
in  Coventry,  and  cut  off  from  all  the  advantages  and  privileges  which  such  an  as- 
sociation affords.  The  influence  thus  brought  to  bear  upon  them  is  ten-fold  more 
potent  than  laws,  and  the  sanctions  of  laws,  in  existing  society.  In  the  event  of 
sickness,  if  the  invalid  has  accumulated  property,  it  serves  to  maintain  him,  and 
redeem  his  outstanding  obligations,  precisely  as  now.  Such  is  the  main  purpose 
of  accumulation.     If  a  person  has  no  property  at  the  time  his  Labor  Notes  are 


74  The  Science  of  Society. 

given,  then  his  credit  is  based  solely  on  his  future  labor,  and  the  liability  to  sick- 
ness and  death  enters  into  the  transaction  and  limits  the  issue.  The  risk  is  in- 
curred by  the  party  who  receives  them.  As  the  amount  of  these  notes  in  the  hands 
of  any  single  individual  is  generally  small,  the  risk  is  a  mere  trifle,  and  has  never 
been  found,  practically,  to  be  enough  to  make  it  worth  while  to  take  it  into  ac- 
count at  all.  For  the  contingency  of  the  loss  of  property  by  fire  or  other  accidents, 
between  the  time  when  obligations  are  incurred  and  their  redemption,  as  well  as 
at  all  other  times,  insurance  can  be  resorted  to,  as  is  done  in  existing  society. 
Thus  the  Labor  Note,  while  it  is  a  circulating  medium,  is  at  the  same  time  the  in- 
strument of  a  system  of  credit,  having  all  the  advantages,  with  none  of  the  fright- 
ful results  of  insecurity  and  bankruptcy,  which  grow  out  of,  or  accompany,  the 
credit  system  actually  prevailing  in  the  commercial  world. 

77.  IV. —  The  Labor  Note  represents  an  ascertained  and  definite  amount  of  labor 
or  property,  which  ordinary  money  does  not.  We  have  examples  of  this  feature  of 
currency  in  the  railroad  and  opera  ticket,  and  other  similar  representations  of  a 
positive  thing.  A  railroad  ticket  represents  a  ride  of  a  definite  length  today,  to- 
morrow, and  next  day,  but  a  dollar  does  not  represent  any  thing  definite.  It  will 
buy  one  amount  of  sugar  or  flour  today,  another  amount  tomorrow,  and  still  a  dif- 
ferent amoimt  the  next  day.  The  importance  of  this  feature  of  the  two  different 
systems  is  immense.  It  can,  however,  only  be  exhibited  in  its  consequence  by  an 
extended  treatise  on  the  subject.  What  is  shown  in  this  chapter  is  a  mere  glimpse 
at  the  system  of  "Equitable  Commerce"  in  operation.  A  thousand  objections  will 
occur  which  it  is  impossible  to  remove  at  the  time  of  stating  the  general  outline. 
It  will  be  perceived  by  the  acute  intellect  that  a  principle  is  here  broached  which 
is  absohitely  revolutionary  of  all  existing  commerce.  Perhaps  a  few  minds  may 
follow  it  out  at  once  into  its  consequences  far  enough  to  perceive  that  it  promises 
the  most  magnificent  results  in  the  equal  distribution  of  wealth  proportioned  to 
industry,  the  abolition  of  pauperism,  general  security  of  condition  instead  of  con- 
tinual bankruptcy  or  poverty,  universal  cooperation,  the  general  prevalence  of  com- 
mercial honor  and  honesty,  and  in  ten  thousand  harmonizing  and  beneficent  effects, 
morally  and  religiously.  The  larger  class  of  persons,  however,  will  require  that 
each  particular  detail  shall  be  traced  out  and  defined,  and  the  mass  of  mankind 
will  only  understand  the  subject  upon  the  basis  of  practical  illustration.  Hence 
the  necessity  that  the  practice  go  along  with  the  theory,  a  method  which  has  been 
generally  adopted  and  pursued,  and  of  the  results  of  which  the  public  will  be  from 
time  to  time  sufficiently  advised. 

It  would  be  inappropriate  at  this  early  point,  and  before  a  better  understanding 
of  the  results  which  flow  from  the  fountain  of  Equity  has  been  obtained,  to  trace 
the  operation  of  the  Labor  Note  more  into  detail.  In  a  subsequent  chapter  it  will 
be  considered  in  the  light  of  a  universal  or  world-wide  system  of  currency.  (245.) 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  76 


CHAPTER  in. 

COST,  PRICE,  LABOR,  NATURAL,  WEALTH. 

78.  The  position  was  established  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  Equity  in  any 
exchange  of  labor  or  commodities — the  products  of  labor  —  consists  of  the  exact 
equality  of  burdens  assumed  by  the  parties  to  the  transaction.  The  amount  of  bur- 
den involved  in  rendering  a  given  amount  of  labor,  or  a  given  commodity,  is  technically 
denominated  the  "Cost"  of  that  labor  or  commodity,  and  the  labor  or  commodity  which 
is  received  in  return  for  that  which  is  rendered  is  denominated  the  "  Price  "  of  it. 
Hence,  inasmuch  as  it  is  simple  Equity  that  these  two  should  be  the  equivalents  of 
each  other,  or  exactly  equal  in  the  amount  of  burden  imposed,  the  scientific/ormu/a 
is  that  "Cost  is  the  Limit  (or  scientific  measure)  of  Price." 

79.  Cost  is,  then,  the  amount  of  repugnance  overcome.  Hence,  according  to  this 
principle,  the  equitable  price  of  any  labor  or  commodity  is  measured  by  the  amount 
of  human  repugnance  or  endurance  which  it  has  cost  to  perform  the  labor  or  pro- 
duce the  commodity.  This,  again,  is  the  same  thing  as  labor  for  labor,  burden  for 
burden,  or  equality  of  burdens  in  exchange.  Hence  it  implies  that  there  is  no  other 
basis  oi  price,  no  other  ground  for  a  demand  for  remuneration  costing  human  en- 
durance, than  the  fact  of  human  endurance  itself. 

80.  This  proposition,  —  Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,  —  so  simple,  so  seemingly  un- 
important to  the  casual  reader,  and  yet  so  obviously  true  when  properly  appre- 
hended, so  perfectly  consonant  with  the  natural  sentiment  of  right  in  every  mind, 
will  appear  by  its  results  as  previously  stated  to  be  one  of  the  most  radical  propo- 
sitions ever  made.  A  rigid  adhesion  to  it  in  commercial  relations  will  revolutionize 
nearly  every  species  of  transaction  among  men.  It  wiU  do  so  beneficently,  how- 
ever, for  all  classes,  so  that  no  alarm  need  be  felt  by  any.  We  shall  begin,  in  this 
chapter,  to  trace  out  some  of  these  results,  through  the  various  operations  of  the 
principle  upon  the  interests  of  society,  and  to  contrast  them  with  the  effects  of 
those  principles  which  are  now  efficient  in  the  same  sphere. 

81.  The  first  grand  consequence  resulting  from  the  simple  principle  of  Equity 
—  Cost  the  Limit  of  Price — is,  as  already  intimated,  that  whatever  we  possess  which 
has  cost  NO  human  labor,  which  has  imposed  no  burden  in  its  production,  which  has 
COST  nothing,  although  it  is  susceptible  of  being  property,  is,  nevertheless,  not  a  rightful 
subject  o/ PRICE.  All  property  of  this  kind,  whether  it  is  equally  open  to  the  en- 
joyment of  all  mankind, — the  property  of  the  race,  like  air  and  water,  —  or  whether 
it  attaches  more  particularly  to  some  Individual,  like  genius  or  skill,  is  denominated 


76  The  Science  of  Society. 

Natural  Wealth.  The  formula  relating  to  this  subject  is,  then,  that  Natural 
Wealth  bears  no  Price, — that  is,  that  it  cannot,  of  itself,  be  made  the  subject 
of  price  upon  any  equitable  grounds  whatsoever, — although  the  resignation  of  so 
much  of  it  as  is  required  for  one's  own  convenience  may  be  the  basis  of  price  on 
the  ground  of  a  sacrifice  endured,  as  will  be  explained  in  speaking  of  the  compre- 
hensiveness of  the  term  Cost.  (114.)  Every  thing  valuable  which  is  bestowed  by 
nature  without  any  provision  on  the  part  of  mankind  or  the  Individual  is  Natural 
Wealth,  such  as  Jire  and  water,  light  and  heat,  the  earth,  the  air,  the  principles  of  sci- 
ence and  mechanism,  personal  beauty,  health,  natural  genius,  talent,  etc. 

82.  The  principle  stated  in  the  preceding  Number  settles,  scientifically  and 
beautifulh',  the  vexed  question  of  the  ownership  of  the  soil.  Land,  in  its  natural 
state,  is  natural  tvealth,  equally  belonging  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  It 
stands  upon  the  same  footing  as  the  ocean  and  the  atmosphere.  But  so  soon  as 
labor  is  bestowed  upon  any  portion  of  it,  which  adds  to  it  a  positive  value,  the  la- 
bor so  bestowed  is  the  rightful  subject  of  price,  to  be  measured  like  every  other 
species  of  labor,  by  the  cost  or  burden  assumed  in  performing  it.  Thus  the  equit- 
able price  for  lands  upon  which  no  labor  has  been  performed  is  zero ;  the  equitable 
price  for  wild  lands  which  have  merely  been  surveyed  and  bounded  is  the  cost  of 
surveying  and  bounding  them;  if  they  have  been  cleared  and  fenced,  then  the 
equitable  price  is  the  cost  of  clearing  and  fencing  in  addition  to  that  of  surveying 
and  bounding;  and  if,  still  further,  they  have  been  ploughed,  cultivated,  and  im- 
proved, then  the  equitable  price  is  the  cost  of  as  much  labor  as,  rightly  applied, 
would  take  the  same  lands  in  the  natural  state  and  bring  them  into  the  state  of 
improvement  in  which  they  are  found.  The  reason  of  this  latter  modification  is 
this,  —  that  lands  may  have  been  in  cultivation  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  labor 
have  been  bestowed  upon  them  each  year,  while  the  cost  of  such  labor  has  been 
annually  repaid  by  the  successive  crops,  except  so  much  of  the  same  as  remains  on 
the  land  in  the  form  of  permanent  artificial  improvement.  The  cost  which  has 
been  already  repaid  ought  not  to  be  paid  again,  while  that  which  remains  invested, 
and  is  to  be  repaid  out  of  the  future  crops,  or  other  use,  may  be  equitably  demanded 
from  the  purchaser  who  is  to  receive  such  future  benefit.  If  the  lands  have  been 
so  badly  cultivated  as  to  have  deteriorated  instead  of  improved,  it  would  be  equit- 
able that  the  seller  should  pay  to  the  purchaser  a  sum  equal  to  the  cost  of  bring- 
ing them  up  to  their  natural  state.  Such  cultivation  is  robbing  the  land,  and 
incurring  a  debt  to  humanity,  as  if  one  were  to  find  some  means  of  tainting  or  ex- 
hausting the  atmosphere,  or  fouling  a  stream  from  which  others  must  draw  their 
supplies. 

83.  It  is  the  same  with  the  other  natural  elements.  Water  as  it  flows  past  in 
the  stream  is  natural  wealth,  and  not  the  subject  of  price.  The  man  who  should 
seize  upon  a  stream  of  water  and  fence  it  up  or  turn  it  aside,  for  the  purpose  of 
levying  a  tribute  upon  those  who  lived  below  him  upon  the  same  stream,  in  the 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Pnce.  1*1 

form  of  a  price  for  their  necessary  supplies,  would  commit  an  obvious  breach  of 
natural  law.  But  although  water,  in  its  natural  condition,  is  not  equitably  suscep- 
tible of  price,  yet  so  soon  as  human  labor  is  bestowed  upon  it  by  any  person  for 
the  benefit  of  another,  a  price  may  be  rightfully  affixed  to  the  water,  to  be  precisely 
measured  by  the  cost  or  burden  of  the  labor  so  bestowed.  Every  individual  has  a 
right  to  appropriate  so  much  of  the  common  natural  wealth  as  is  requisite  to  the 
supply  of  his  wants.  So  soon  as  I  have  dipped  up  a  pitcher  full  of  water  from  the 
spring  or  stream,  it  is  no  longer  mere  natural  wealth ;  it  is  a  product  of  my  labor  as 
well.  It  is  thus  my  individual  property.  Xo  one  has  a  right  to  take  it  from  me 
without  my  consent,  and  in  case  I  do  consent,  I  have  an  equitable  and  just  right 
to  demand  a  price  equal  to  the  burden  I  have  assumed,  which  consists  of  the  labor, 
the  risk,  or  whatever  else  made  it  a  burden.  If  I  have  merely  dipped  it  up,  the 
equitable  price  is  a  trifle  probably  not  worth  considering;  but  if  I  have  carried  it 
two  miles  over  a  burning  plain,  it  may  be  considerable ;  and  if  I  have  run  the  risk 
of  carrying  it  for  the  sake  of  another  through  the  brisk  fire  from  an  enemy's  bat- 
tery, the  risk  will  enter  equitably  into  the  estimate  of  the  price.  (121.)  In  all 
these  cases  it  is  not  really  the  natural  wealth  itseK,  the  land  or  the  water,  which 
acquires  a  price,  but  the  human  labor  and  other  elements  which  are  bestowed  upon 
it.  Nothing  is  properly  the  rightful  subject  of  price  but  repugnance  overcome.  But  as 
the  portions  of  natural  wealth  to  which  human  labor  has  thus  been  added  are  the 
objects  which  are  wanted  by  the  purchaser,  and  which  are  delivered  to  him  when 
the  price  is  paid,  it  is  natural  to  speak  of  them  as  bearing  the  price. 

84.  It  is  obvious  from  this  application  of  the  principle  of  cost,  which  we  have 
seeu  is  nothing  but  the  scientific  measure  of  equity,  that  simple  equity  cuts  up  by 
the  roots  every  species  of  speculation  in  lands.  It  will  be  seen,  iu  the  next  place, 
that  it  cuts  up  equally  another  species  of  speculation,  which  the  world  hardly  sus- 
pects of  being,  although  it  is,  both  in  principle  and  iu  its  oppressive  results,  equally 
iniquitous, — that  is,  speculation  in  talent,  natural  skill,  or  genius.  The  definitions 
and  principles  above  stated  render  it  obvious  that  no  man  has  any  just  or  equitable 
right  to  charge  a  price  for  that  which  it  cost  nothing  of  human  labor  to  create. 
"  Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give." 

85.  A  superior  natural  tact  for  the  performance  of  any  function  or  labor  rea- 
ders it  easier  instead  of  harder  to  perform  the  function  or  labor.  It  makes  the 
burden  ordinarily  lighter  instead  of  heavier,  and  consequently,  upon  the  Cost 
Principle,  reduces  instead  of  augmenting  the  price.  I  say,  "ordinarily,"  because  the 
case  may  happen  of  a  person  having  a  high  degree  of  natural  ability  for  a  particu- 
lar kind  of  industry,  and  having  at  the  same  time,  from  some  special  cause,  an 
unusual  repugnance  to  its  performance,  and  it  must  be  constantly  remembered  that 
it  is  the  degree  of  personal  repugnance  overcome  which  measures  the  price.  As 
the  rule,  however,  the  taste  or  attraction  for  a  given  pursuit  accompanies  and  cor- 
responds to  the  degree  of  excellence  in  it,  and  in  that  case  the  remarkable  result 
above  stated  flows  from  the  principle. 


78  The  Science  of  Society. 

86.  Xaturally  enough,  a  conclusion  so  strikingly  dissimilar  to  all  that  is  now 
seen  in  practice  or  entertained  in  idea  will  be  received  at  first  blush  with  some 
suspicions  of  its  soundness.  It  will  be  found,  however,  upon  examination,  that 
the  consequences  of  admitting  it  are  all  beneficent  and  harmonious.  They  are,  in 
fact,  indispensable  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  true  social  relations. 

87.  Talent,  natural  skill,  or  genius,  distinguished  from  such  ability  as  is  the  result 
of  labor  or  acquisition,  is  one  species  of  natural  wealth.  It  is  not,  like  earth,  air,  and 
water,  equally  distributed  by  nature  to  all  men,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  equally 
enjoyed  by  all.  Those  on  whom  it  has  been  conferred  in  a  high  degree  have  a 
kind  of  enjoyment  of  it  in  the  fact  of  its  possession,  which  cannot  be  participated 
with  others.  It  is  the  same  with  health  or  personal  beauty,  or  a  naturally  graceful 
deportment.  In  this  particular  way,  although  it  is  natural  wealth,  it  is  individual 
wealth  also.  There  are  other  ways,  however,  in  which  it  is  not  individual  or  ex- 
clusive, but  in  which  it  may  be  partaken  of  by  all  around,  as  when  we  experience 
the  pleasure  of  looking  upon  a  beautiful  countenance  or  a  graceful  figure,  or  when 
we  enjoy  the  creations  of  another's  genius,  or  the  productions  of  another's  natural 
endowments.  This  kind  of  enjoyment  is  bestowed  by  natare  gratuitously,  and  is 
not  confined  to  the  individual  who  produces  it.  It  is  the  common  patrimony  of 
mankind  as  much  as  air,  earth,  and  water. 

88.  It  follows  from  these  considerations  that  neither  the  forensic  talents  be- 
stowed by  nature  upon  a  Daniel  Webster,  nor  the  musical  endowments  of  a  Jenny 
Lind,  nor  the  natural  agility  of  the  mountebank,  constitute  any  legitimate  or 
equitable  basis  of  price,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  have  cost  their  possessors 
nothing,  and  it  has  already  been  settled  that  cost  is  the  only  legitimate  ground 
of  price. 

89.  Observe,  in  the  first  place,  that  I  do  not  say  that  the  labor  which  it  may 
require  on  their  part  to  exercise  these  natural  talents  is  not  a  legitimate  basis  of 
price.  On  the  contrary,  I  afiirm  that  it  is  so,  and  that  such  labor  is  the  only  basis 
of  price  in  the  performance,  and  hence  that  the  price  of  the  performance  is  equita- 
bly limited  by  the  precise  amount  of  the  labor  in  it,  estimated  according  to  its  re- 
pugnance to  the  individual,  relatively  to  other  kinds  of  labor,  —  not  augmented  one 
iota  on  account  of  the  extraordinary  natural  abilities  which  the  performance  demands. 
There  is  in  that  element  no  labor,  no  repugnance  overcome,  no  cost,  and  consequently 
no  basis  of  price. 

90.  Observe,  in  the  next  place,  that  labor  expended  prior  to  the  performance, 
in  cultivating  the  natural  talent  and  fitting  it  for  the  performance,  is  an  element 
of  cost,  a  due  proportion  of  which  may  be  equitably  charged  upon  each  specific 
exhibition  of  the  talent.  This  point  will  be  more  fully  considered  presently  in 
treating  of  the  constituents  of  cost.     (121.) 

91.  It  will  be  objected  that  under  this  system  talent  and  skill  receive  no  pro- 
tection.    Talent  and  skill  are  intellectual  strength,  and  it  is  not  strength  but 


Cost  the  Limit  of  PHce.  79 

weakness  which  demands  protection.  Talent  and  skill  now  enable  their  posses- 
sors to  subject  the  world  as  effectually,  through  its  industrial  relations,  as  prowess 
and  physical  manhood  formerly  enabled  their  possessors  to  do  so  upon  the  battle- 
fields of  past  history.  The  dominion  of  physical  conquest  is  now  partially  becom- 
ing extinct.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  the  reign  of  intellectual  superiority,  which  is 
far  more  subtle  and  intricate  in  the  modes  of  its  tyrannical  action.  The  discovery 
of  the  true  laws  of  social  order  will  not  be,  therefore,  the  discovery  of  increased 
facilities  for  talent  or  intellectual  power  to  exert  itself  for  its  ovra  immediate  and 
selfish  aggrandizement,  but  the  precise  contrary. 

92.  At  the  same  time  talent  and  skill  will  always  command,  like  physical  man- 
hood, a  certain  degree  of  homage,  and  secure,  indirectly,  more  refined  and  yet 
more  substantial  rewards  than  direct  appropriation  would  confer.  In  discussing 
the  subject  of  price  we  are  by  no  means  discussing  all  the  possible  effects  of  per- 
formance, but  only  that  one  which  forms  the  basis  of  a  demand  for  a  direct  equi- 
valent or  compensation. 

93.  Price  is  that  which  a  party  may  properly  demand  as  his  right,  in  considera- 
tion of  services  rendered.  It  relates,  therefore,  to  exact  justice  between  the  parties, 
and  justice  has  in  it  no  touch  of  mercy,  or  gratitude,  or  benevolence,  —  no  tribute 
of  admiration,  no  homage.  It  does  not  exclude  the  exercise  of  those  sentiments 
after  its  own  demands  are  satisfied,  but,  for  itself  it  knows  nothmg  of  that  sort. 
Justice  demands  Equity,  exact  Equivalents,  Burden  for  Burden ;  and  will  be  satis- 
fied with  nothing  else.  To  understand  the  appropriate  sphere  of  these  various 
affections  we  must  individualize  their  functions.  It  is  essential  not  only  to  the 
security  of  rights,  but  equally  in  order  that  benevolence  or  homage  be/eZi  and  ac- 
cepted as  such,  that  the  limits  of  each  should  be  exactly  defined.  The  rendition 
of  justice  is  the  basis,  or  platform,  or  prior  condition,  upon  which  benevolence 
must  rest.  The  slave  feels  little  or  no  gratitude  toward  his  master  for  any  act  of 
kindness  which  the  master  may  do,  because  he  is  conscious  that  the  master  is  liv- 
ing in  an  unjust  relation  toward  him,  and  that  he  owes  him  as  matter  of  justice 
more  than  he  grants  as  an  indulgence.  This  apparent  destitution  of  the  senti- 
ment of  gratitude  reacts  upon  the  master,  and  he  despises  and  depreciates  the 
moral  constitution  of  the  slave.  The  fault  is  in  the  absence  of  the  prior  condition 
of  Justice,  which  alone  authorizes  benevolence,  which  then  inspires  gratitude,  and 
all  conspire  to  institute  and  maintain  friendly  and  harmonious  relations.  A  char- 
ity bestowed  while  justice  is  withheld  is  always  an  insult. 

94.  Again,  according  to  a  law  of  the  human  mind,  injustice  persisted  in  begets 
aversion  or  hatred  on  the  part  of  the  perpetrator  as  well,  toward  the  object  of  it. 
But  justice  cannot  be  rendered  while  one  is  ignorant  of  what  justice  is ;  and  since 
no  one  who  does  not  know  that  Cost  is  the  Limit  of  Price  knows  what  the  limits 
of  justice  are,  it  follows  that  every  one  has  been  living  in  relations  of  injustice 
toward  all  around  him.     A  partial  consciousness  of  this  truth  tends  still  farther  to 


80  The  Science  of  Society. 

inspire  ill-will  on  the  part  of  the  governors  toward  the  governed,  of  the  employers 
toward  the  employed,  and  of  masters  toward  slaves.  Hence,  it  will  be  perceived 
that  a  denial  of  justice  operates  through  two  channels  to  prevent  the  natural  flow 
of  benevolence,  by  hindering  its  bestowment,  at  the  same  time  that  it  enfeebles  or 
destroys  the  appreciation  of  it  by  the  recipient. 

95.  Still  again,  from  ignorance  of  the  landmarks  of  justice  or  Equity,  acts  are 
continually  done  under  the  supposition  that  justice  demands  them,  and  with  no 
sentiment  of  benevolence,  which  should  fall  within  the  province  of  benevolence, 
while  the  same  ignorance  on  the  other  hand  hinders  their  acknowledgment  as  be- 
nevolent acts,  and  prevents,  consequently,  the  appropriate  sentiment  of  gratitude 
or  reciprocal  benevolence,  which  should  be  the  result. 

96.  The  magnificent  testimonial  bestowed  by  the  English  people  upon  Rowland 
Hill  for  his  conception  of  the  idea  of  cheap  postage  and  his  exertions  in  behalf  of 
the  reform  had  in  it  nothing  discordant  with  true  principles,  because  it  was  be- 
stowed as  a  gratuitous  homage  and  accepted  as  such.  Whenever  all  obstructions 
to  the  natural  exuberance  of  benevolence  toward  those  who  confer  benefits  upon 
us  are  removed  by  the  establishment  of  equitable  relations,  such  voluntary  tributes 
repeated  on  all  hands  will  furnish  a  richer  inheritance  for  genius  than  the  beggarly 
and  precarious  subsistence  which  now  enures  from  pensions  and  patent-laws.  The 
testimonial  to  Rowland  Hill  was  not  the  price  of  his  services,  any  more  than  a 
bridal  present  is  the  price  of  affection.  Had  he  opened  an  account  of  debtor  and 
creditor  with  the  nation,  and  charged  them  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  as  the 
price  of  his  services,  gratitude  w^ould  have  been  extinguished  by  the  preposterous 
pretension,  and  benevolence  have  been  converted  into  aversion  and  disgust.  The 
people,  ignorant  of  the  law  of  equivalents  as  a  principle,  would  have  felt  it  as  an 
instinct,  and  have  been  repelled  unwittingly  by  the  breach  of  it.  To  make  the 
higher  class  of  services  a  matter  of  price  at  all  somewhat  depreciates  their  esti- 
mate. The  artist  and  the  inventor  is  apt  to  feel  something  akin  to  degradation, 
when  forced  to  prefer  a  pecuniary  demand  in  retm-n  for  the  fruits  of  his  genius. 
Every  genuine  artist  has  an  instinct  for  being  an  amateur  performer  solely.  There 
is  an  intimation  in  this  fact  that  in  the  true  social  order  the  rewards  of  genius  will 
either  cease  to  be  pecuniary  altogether,  or,  if  not,  that  they  will  be  wholly  aban- 
doned to  the  voluntary  largesse  of  mankind.     (ITi.) 

97.  The  Cost  Principle  deals  wholly  with  price,  —  that  is,  with  that  to  which 
the  parti/  rendering  the  service  should  limit  his  demand,  ifjixed  by  himself,  not  to  what 
it  is  proper,  or  becoming,  or  natural  that  others  should  bestow  as  a  gratuity,  which 
latter  is  a  matter  solely  for  their  consideration.     This  last  is  not  his  affair. 

98.  It  is  in  this  rigid  sense  that  it  is  affirmed  that  Jenny  Lind  has  no  equitable 
right  to  charge  more  for  an  hour  expended  in  singing  than  any  other  person  should 
receive  for  an  hour  of  labor  equally  repugnant,  and  which  has  involved  equal  cou- 
tingencies  of  prior  labor  and  the  like.     Even  tliat  price  is  then  divisible  among  all 


Coat  the  Limit  of  Pnce.  81 

who  hear  her.  The  refining  results  of  this  operation  of  the  principle  in  diffusing 
the  benefits  of  superior  endowments  in  every  sphere  among  the  whole  people  will 
be  traced  out  into  infinite  ramifications  by  the  reader  for  himself. 

99.  The  objection  that  men  of  genius,  inventors,  and  those  who  exercise  callings 
which  are  purely  attractive,  are  not  provided  by  this  principle  with  the  means  of 
obtaining  a  livelihood  will  be  answered  under  another  head.     (174.) 

100.  There  is  another  subtle  and  phiusible  objection  which  may  be  urged  to 
this  position,  in  relation  to  natural  genius,  talent,  or  skill,  and  which  demands  no 
little  rigor  of  attention  to  detect  its  fallacy.  It  may  be  said  that  Nature  deals 
with  man  liberally,  in  proportion  to  his  endowments;  that  is,  that  she  crowns  with 
greater  exuberance  of  results  the  exertions  of  the  strong  man  and  the  wise  man 
than  she  does  those  of  the  weak  and  the  simple-minded,  and  hence  that  there  can 
be  no  essential  injustice  in  doing  pfecisely  what  Xature  herself  does, — that  is,  in 
maintaining  so  much  inequality  as  results  from  giving  to  each  an  equivalent  in  the 
products  of  others  to  the  products  of  his  own  powers.  If,  on  the  contrary,  a  man 
who  can  produce  more  largely  and  better,  from  superior  ability,  exchanges  with 
one  who  produces  less  abundant  and  inferior  commodities,  solely  according  to  the 
intrinsic  hardship  or  cost  of  the  labor  to  each,  —  no  reference  whatever  being  had  to 
the  amount  or  quality  of  the  products,  —  it  is  clear  that  the  man  of  the  highest  capacity 
loses  the  advantage  in  the  transaction  which  Xature  has  conferred  upon  him,  and 
which  seems,  therefore,  to  be  justified  by  the  ordinances  of  Natui-e.  It  is  clear 
that,  if  he  gets  in  the  exchange  only  so  much  of  the  products  of  the  other  as  would 
have  been  the  result  of  his  own  superior  ability  applied  in  that  direction,  he  only  gets 
what  Nature  would  have  given  him  if  he  had  dealt  directly  with  her.  Why,  then, 
is  it  not  right  that  he  should  have  as  much  advantage  in  the  bargain  as  he  has  in 
the  direct  production? 

101.  The  objection  is  here  strongly  put  in  order  that  it  may  be  completely  dis- 
posed of.     It  is  answered  as  follows : 

It  is  the  destiny  of  mau  to  rise  into  higher  relations  than  those  which  he  holds 
with  Nature.  When  mau  deals  with  Nature,  he  is  dealing  with  an  abject  servant 
or  slave.  There  is  no  equality  nor  reciprocity  between  the  parties.  Man  is  a  Sove- 
reign and  Nature  his  minister.  He  extorts  from  her  rightfully  whatever  she  can 
be  made  to  yield.  The  legitimate  business  of  man  is  the  conquest  and  subjugation 
of  Nature,  and  the  law  of  superior  force  is  the  legitimate  law  of  conquest  and  sub- 
jugation. But  so  soon  as  man  comes  into  relations  with  his  fellow-man  ^he  dispro- 
portion ceases.  He  is  then  dealing  with  his  peers.  The  legitimate  object  of  the 
intercourse  is  no  longer  the  same.  It  is  not  now  conquest  and  subjugation,  but 
equipoise  and  the  freedom  of  all.  A  higher  relationship  intervenes,  and  the  bal- 
ance of  concurrent  Sovereignties  can  only  be  established  and  maintained  by  ac- 
kuowledging  the  law  of  that  relationship.  For  the  strong  man,  physically  or 
intellectually,  to  avail  himself,  to  his  private  advantage,  of  his  superior  strength, 


82  The  Science  of  Society. 

as  the  method  of  his  intercourse  with  his  fellow-men,  is  finally  to  accumulate  all 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  and  in  the  mean  time  to  inaugm-ate  the  reign  of 
discord,  collision,  and  war. 

102.  This  subtile  but  most  important  distinction  is  already  practically  acknow- 
ledged in  a  large  circle  of  human  affairs.  The  world  is  already  sufficiently 
progi'essed,  in  civilized  countries  at  least,  to  act  upon  this  distinction  between  in- 
animate nature  and  rational  beings,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  immediate  exertion  of 
physical  strength, — the  simple  force  of  bone  and  muscle  directly  applied.  The 
strong  man  is  not  now  justified  by  the  common  sense  of  right  in  seizing  and  ap- 
propriating the  wealth  of  the  weak  simply  because  he  can,  while  at  the  same  time, 
when  dealing  with  Nature,  he  is  never  reproved  for  compelling  her  to  the  utmost 
of  his  power  over  her.  Right  is  distinguished  from  mi(]ht  with  reference  to  men, — 
a  distinction  which,  as  respects  Nature,  does  not  exist. 

103.  As  relates  to  intellectual  superiority,  the  same  distinction  is  likewise 
already  acknowledged  to  an  indefinite  and  fluctuating  extent.  The  sharper  is 
restrained  from  availing  himself  of  his  quickness  of  wit  by  the  intervention  of 
stringent  laws  and  exemplary  penalties.  Upon  what  principle  is  that?  It  is  the 
admission  that  man  ought  not,  —  that  it  is  unjust  or  inequitable  that  man  should 
use  his  superior  mental  endowments  to  his  own  private  advantage,  in  dealing  with 
men,  while  no  such  restriction  lies  upon  him  when  dealing  with  Nature.  He  is 
bound  to  deal  with  them,  contrary  to  the  fact,  precisely  as  if  they  had  the  same 
amount  of  strength  and  mental  power  as  he  has  himself,  or,  rather,  as  if  it  were 
not  a  question  of  strength  but  of  right;  in  the  same  manner  as,  according  to  the 
canons  of  international  law,  the  large  and  powerful  State  recognizes  the  equal 
sovereignty  of  the  smallest  independent  community.  The  law  of  intei'course  be- 
tween Individual  Sovereigns  is  the  same  as  between  the  concrete  Sovereignties  of 
existing  States.  To  commit  a  breach  of  this  higher  law  of  Sovereign  peerage  is  to 
secure  to  the  stronger  party  an  immediate  and  apparent  advantage,  to  the  desti'uc- 
tion  of  the  less  obvious  but  more  substantial  benefits  resulting  to  both  from  the 
existence  of  a  true  social  equilibrium.  Such  is  the  policy  of  the  brigand  and  the 
pirate,  who  pounce  upon  their  booty  for  the  supply  of  tlieir  immediate  wants, — 
because  they  can, — regardless  of  the  fact  that  their  practices  will  prove  the  dis- 
ruption of  society  and  end  in  the  destruction  of  the  very  commerce  upon  which 
they  prey. 

104.  lo  the  intellectual  sphere,  the  admission  of  this  higher  law  has  hitherto 
been  made  only  up  to  an  unascertained  line.  Superior  talent  or  skill,  naturally 
bestowed,  have  always  been,  and  are  still,  practically  recognized  as  giving  superior 
right,  except  in  the  few  extreme  cases  in  which  the  enormity  of  the  principle  is  too 
obvious  to  be  overlooked,  and  in  which  the  exercise  of  that  superiority  is  defined 
by  Fraud,  Gambling,  Swindling,  or  some  other  of  the  euphonious  epithets  by  which 
society  stigmatizes,  in  its  ultimates,  a  rule  of  conduct  which,  in  its  more  general 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  83 

and  pervading  applications,  it  sanctions  and  approves.  ^Vhenever  the  perception 
of  this  true  law  shall  have  been  thoroughly  awakened;  when  the  public  mind  shall 
be  wholly  penetrated  by  the  conviction  that  the  employment  of  either  physical  or 
intellectual  power,  had  by  natural  endowment,  in  any  transaction  between  mew,  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  gain  an  immediate  and  selfish  advantage  to  the  stronger  party, 
is  of  the  essential  natm-e  of  fraud,  swindling,  and  robbery,  —  society  will  rise  to  a 
new  plane,  and  will  then  find  a  develoi^ment  as  superior  to  our  present  civilization 
as  that  is  to  the  savage  state,  —  a  development  in  which  those  who  surrender  most 
will  as  truly  find  their  highest  emolument  as  those  who  surrender  least.  Thus  true 
science  conducts  us  back,  in  some  sense,  to  the  sublime  precept  of  religion :  "  He 
that  would  be  greatest  among  you  let  him  serve." 

105.  So  far,  then,  as  the  individual  consumes  directly  products  of  his  own  labor, 
he  enjoys  the  immediate  advantage  of  his  own  talent  or  skill,  as  the  strong  man 
enjoys  his  strength  or  the  beautiful  woman  her  beauty.  But  the  moment  he  pro- 
poses to  exchange  his  labor  with  other  human  beings,  it  is  the  harmonic  law  that 
he  shall  renounce  that  advantage  entirely,  recognizing  the  full  equality  of  the  infe- 
rior party.  To  claim  it  is  to  introduce  an  element  into  the  social  relations  as  dis- 
turbing in  its  nature  as  it  would  be  if  the  handsome  woman  were  to  claim  of  right 
superior  rank  by  virtue  of  her  beauty,  or  the  strong  man  impunity  from  the  law 
by  virtue  of  his  strength. 

106.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  most  progressed  or  humanized  society  that  the 
strong  recognizes  the  equality  of  the  weak.  Hence  the  constant  advancement  of 
woman  in  the  relative  scale  of  position, — the  sinking  of  physical  superiority  before 
intellectual,  and  finally  of  intellectual  before  the  spiritual,  affectionate,  and  aes- 
thetic. That  sublime  characteristic  of  the  highest  type  of  humanity  is  wholly 
wanting  in  the  demand  of  the  superior  worker  that  the  inferior  shall  make  up  the 
difference  in  excess  of  labor.  It  is  preeminently  exhibited,  on  the  contrary,  and 
the  highest  attainment  of  civilization  achieved,  when  the  basis  of  the  exchange  is 
shifted  from  the  equality  of  products  to  the  equality  of  burdens.  The  strong  says 
to  the  weak,  labor  is  painful  and  imposes  a  burden.  It  is  not  just  between  beings 
who  hold  human  relations  that  you,  who  are  weak,  shall  be  required  to  endure  a 
greater  burden  than  I,  who  am  strong.  Hence  we  will  exchange  labor  for  labor, 
not  according  to  its  fruitfulness,  but  according  to  the  repugnance  which  has  to  be 
overcome. 

107.  Take  an  illustration  as  between  nations.  A  small  but  industrious  and 
civilized  people  inhabit  a  country  lying  between  the  dominions  of  a  powerful  em- 
pire on  one  side,  and  hordes  of  treacherous  savages  on  the  other,  who  threaten  to 
invade  and  lay  waste  the  country.  The  feeble  nation  applies  to  the  powerful  one 
to  extend  a  degree  of  protection  over  them  by  establishing  forts  upon  the  frontier 
and  adding  the  weight  of  their  influence  in  overawing  the  savage  tribes.  Assume 
that  the  cost  of  the  aid  thus  rendered  is  equal  to  one  million  of  dollars  per  annum, 


84  The  Science  of  Society. 

and  that  by  estimate  it  saves  the  whole  property  of  the  weaker  nation  from  destruc- 
tion, the  income  upon  which  amounts  to  a  hundred  million  of  dollars.  What  trib- 
ute in  the  nature  of  payment  shall  the  weaker  nation  render  to  the  stronger? 
According  to  one  rule,  it  will  be  an  amount  equal  to  the  expenditure  by  the 
stronoer.  According  to  the  other,  it  will  be  an  amount  equal  to  the  benefit  in- 
curred,—  namely,  a  yearly  tribute  equal  to  the  whole  products  of  the  land.  Is  it 
not  clear  which  is  the  hiunanitary,  coui-teous,  or  civilized  basis  of  the  transaction 
and  which  the  barbarous  one?  According  to  the  latter,  the  choice  of  the  people 
whose  safety  is  endangered  lies  between  two  sets  of  savages,  each  of  whom  will 
rob  them  equally  of  all  they  possess.  Is  it  not  clear,  then,  that  the  humauitary 
basis  of  remuneration  is  not  measured  by  the  extent  of  the  benefit  conferred, — 
the  Value,  —  but  by  the  extent  of  the  burden  assumed, — the  Cost.  And  is  it  not 
clear,  again,  in  the  case  supposed,  if  the  strong  nation  were  still  more  powerful,  so 
that  the  use  of  its  name  merely  were  a  terror  to  its  savage  neighbors,  and  would 
suffice,  with  less  extensive  fortifications,  as  a  mere  demonstration  of  the  animus  to 
resist,  or  with  no  fortifications  at  all,  to  restrain  them,  that  the  cost  of  the  defence 
would  be  decreased  by  such  superiority  of  strength  and  weight  of  name,  and  that 
consequently  the  price  of  it  should  he  diminished  likewise,  instead  of  being  aug- 
mented thereby. 

Carry  out  the  analogy  of  this  illustration  to  the  case  of  the  way  in  which  natural 
talent  and  skill  are  made  the  basis  of  price  in  private  transactions,  and  it  will  be 
perceived  that  the  principle  now  acted  on  is  the  barbarous  principle, — the  principle 
of  conquest  and  rapine,  —  the  principle  of  an  equality  of  benejits  demanded  between 
parties,  one  of  whom  is  capable  of  conferring  great  benefits  at  slight  cost,  and  the 
other  only  capable  of  conferring  small  ones  at  an  equal  or  greater  amount  of  cost, 
— a  principle  destructive  of  equality,  equipoise,  and  harmony,  and  under  the  ope- 
ration of  which  the  weaker  are  inevitably  crushed  and  devoured  by  the  stronger, 
to  the  utter  annihilation  of  all  hope  of  realizing  the  higher  and  more  beautiful 
phases  of  possible  human  society. 

108.  To  illustrate  still  further.  When  a  robust  and  hearty  youth  rises  and 
stands,  yielding  his  seat  to  a  woman,  an  old  man,  or  an  invalid,  he  does  so  because, 
in  consequence  of  his  strength,  it  costs  him  less  to  stand,  —  it  is  less  repugnant  for 
him  to  do  so  than  for  the  other.  The  superior  power  reduces  the  cost,  and  all  re- 
fined and  well-developed  manhood  admires  the  vindication  of  the  principle  in- 
volved, even  while  not  understanding  it  as  such.  In  this  transaction  there  is  no 
price  demanded,  but,  if  there  were,  it  is  obvious  that  the  price  to  the  robust  man 
for  yielding  his  advantage  should  be  less  than  to  the  feeble,  while  upon  the  value 
principle  it  would  be  more.  In  this  species  of  intercourse  we  already,  then,  draw 
the  line  between  cultivated  and  advanced  humanity,  and  barbarous  or  boorish 
humanity,  precisely  where  these  two  principles  diverge.  With  a  more  complete 
efflorescence  of  Humanitary  Ethics,  true  princii)le  will  supersede  the  false  through- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  85 

out  the  whole  range  of  personal  transactions.  The  adoption  of  the  Cost  Principle 
in  commerce  will  not  only  insure  the  equitable  distribution  of  wealth,  and  disperse 
the  manifold  evils  which  grow  out  of  the  pervading  injustice  of  the  existing  sys- 
tem, but  it  will  do  more,  —  it  will  crown  the  common  honors  of  life  with  a  halo  of 
mutual  urbanity,  and  render  the  daily  interchange  of  labor  and  of  ordinary  com- 
modities a  perpetual  sacrament  of  fraternal  affection. 

109.  It  results,  then,  that  the  natural  and  necessary  effect  of  the  Cost  Principle 
is  to  limit  the  relative  power  and  advantage  of  the  intellectually  strong  over  the 
intellectually  weak  in  the  same  manner  as  Law,  Morality,  Religion,  Machinery, 
and  the  other  appliances  of  civilization  have  alreadj^,  in  civilized  countries,  partially 
limited  the  power  and  neutralized  the  advantage  of  the  physically  strong  over  the 
physically  weak,  and  to  complete,  even  in  the  physical  sphere,  what  Law,  j\Iorality, 
Religion,  Machinery,  and  the  other  appliances  of  civilization  have  hitherto  failed 
to  accomplish,  for  the  want  of  the  more  definite  science  of  the  subject. 

110.  But,  in  order  to  the  general  adoption  of  this  regulating  principle,  is  not 
the  consent  of  the  strong  man  indispensable  as  well  as  that  of  the  weak?  By  what 
means  shall  he  be  persuaded  to  make  the  sacrifice  of  his  superior  advantage?  Is 
not  the  appeal  solely  to  his  benevolence,  and  has  not  past  experience  demonstrated 
that  all  such  appeals  are  nearly  powerless  against  the  controlling  current  of  per- 
sonal interests? 

111.  Certainly  the  concurrence  of  both  the  powerful  and  the  feeble  is  alike 
requisite  to  the  complete  and  general  adoption  of  the  Cost  Principle,  but  that 
cannot  be  said  to  be  necessary  to  commence  its  application.  It  has  already  been 
stated  that  the  Cost  Principle  affords  the  means  to  the  laboring  classes,  who  are 
kept  now  in  comparative  weakness  and  ignorance,  of  stepping  out  from  under  the 
oppressions  of  capital  and  leaving  it  with  no  foundation  on  which  to  rest  in  its 
usurped  superiority  over  labor.  Hence  the  weak  are  enabled  by  it  to  cope  with 
the  strong,  while  the  strong  themselves  wUl  not  long  resist  the  innovation,  for  the 
reason  that  their  own  positive  strength  is  also  increased  by  the  same  means.  It  is 
only  their  relative  superiority  which  is  reduced  by  it.  In  other  words,  all  classes 
will  have  their  condition  positively  improved,  the  rich  only  a  little  less  than  the 
poor,  so  that  the  frightful  inequalities  of  the  present  system  will  be  obliterated 
and  extinguished.  An  analogue  of  this  effect  is  found  in  the  material  sphere,  in 
the  invention  of  gunpowder  and  firearms,  for  example.  A  pistol  puts  a  small  man 
and  a  large  man  upon  the  same  footing  of  strength,  or  perhaps  rather  reverses  it 
a  little,  as  the  large  man  presents  a  broader  surface  to  the  deadly  aim.  Still  either 
party  is  a  more  powerful  man  with  than  without  it.  It  serves  to  establish  a  balance 
of  power,  while  at  the  same  time  it  augments  the  power  of  both.  It  is  the  same 
with  larger  arms  and  larger  bodies  of  men.  Hence  the  pistol,  the  blunderbuss, 
and  the  carronade  have  been  among  the  greatest  civilizers  of  mankind.  It  is  the 
same,  again,  with  laws  and  the  civil  state  which  have  been  instituted  to  equalize 


/ 


86  The  Science  of  Society. 

the  diversities  of  strength  among  men  by  substituting  arbitrary  rules  for  physical 
force.  Like  firearms  and  gunpowder,  they  are  a  barbarous  remedy  for  a  more 
barbarous  evil,  and  will  give  place,  in  turn,  with  the  progress  of  man,  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  mere  principles,  accepted  into  and  proving  operative  upon  the  indivi- 
dual mind. 

112.  In  this  manner  the  Cost  Principle  has  in  it  the  means  of  first  compelling 
and  then  reconciling  to  its  adoption  those  to  whom  the  possession  of  superior  in- 
tellectual powers  or  cunning,  with  the  accumulations  of  capital,  give  now  the 
ascendancy.  This,  however,  only  so  far  as  such  compulsion  shall  prove  necessary. 
It  is  a  grand  mistake  to  assume,  as  the  inclusive  rule,  that  those  who  have  the  best 
end  of  the  bargain  in  our  present  iniquitous  social  relations  are  averse  to  a  reor- 
ganization upon  the  basis  of  justice.  The  ignorant  and  selfish  among  them  are  so, 
but  it  is  among  this  superior  class  that  the  best  and  most  devoted  friends  of  the 
rights  of  man  are  likely  to  be  found.     The  progress  of  the  race  has  always  been 

■^  officered  by  leaders  from  among  the  Patricians.  It  is  among  those  who  gain  the 
advantage,  and  are  thrown  to  the  surface  and  exposed  to  the  blessed  air  and  light 
of  Heaven  by  the  fluctuations  of  the  turbulent  ocean  of  human  affairs,  that  the 
greatest  development  occurs;  and  along  with  development  comes  the  sentiment  of 
humanity  and  human  brotherhood.  The  masses  of  men  have  seldom  been  indebted 
solely  to  themselves  for  what  they  have  at  any  time  gained.  The  most  unbounded 
benevolence  is  often  coupled  with  the  possession  of  great  wealth.  But  how  often 
has  the  sentiment  been  repelled  and  made  to  recoil  upon  itself  with  disappointment 
and  disgust  at  the  results  of  its  own  efforts  to  benefit  mankind  I  How  often  has 
the  harsh  lesson  been  taught  to  the  rich  and  the  good  that  the  sentiment  is  power- 
less without  the  science,  —  that  Love,  without  its  complement  in  Wisdom,  is  blind 
and  destructive  of  its  own  ends ! 

113.  Hence,  whenever  a  true  science  of  society  shall  have  been  demonstrably 
discovered,  when  the  means  of  permanent  benefit  to  the  race  shall  be  unquestion- 

*^  ably  at  hand,  benevolent  capitalists  will  assuredly  be  found  in  the  first  ranks  of 
those  who  will  concur  to  realize  the  higher  results  of  human  society,  to  which  such 
knowledge  is  competent  to  conduct.  The  advanced  and  highly  developed  among 
men  are  always  ready  to  sacrifice  their  relative  superiority  for  the  greater  good  of 
all,  for  no  other  reason  than  simply  because  they  are  men.  Hence,  again,  although 
the  Cost  Principle  is  fully  adequate  to  enable  the  poor,  feeble,  and  oppressed 
classes  to  emancipate  themselves  from  the  oppressions  of  capital,  it  will,  in  prac- 
tice, be  put  to  no  such  strain.  The  future  will  show  that  the  rich  and  poor  will 
freely  cooperate  with  hearty  sincerity  in  the  work  of  social  regeneration,  upon 
scientific  and  truly  constructive  principles. 

114.  It  is  proper  at  this  point  to  show  more  explicitly  the  extension  and  com- 
prehensiveness of  the  term  Cost.  It  has  been  spoken  of  in  the  preceding  pages 
chiefly  as  human  repugnance  overcome  in  the  performance  of  labor.     It  is  more 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  87 

V 
accurate  to  define  it,  however,  simply  as  hupian  repugnance  overcome  in  any  transac- 
tion. It  has  both  an  active  or  positive,  aiffl  a  passive  or  negative,  aspect,  to  which 
last  a  slight  reference  has  already  been  had.  (81.)  The  repugnance  overcome  in 
the  actual  performance  of  labor  is  the  active  phase  of  the  subject,  but  there  is  also 
repugnance  overcome  in  the  mere  sacrifice  or  surrender  of  any  thing  which  we 
possess,  and  which  we  require  at  the  time  for  our  own  convenience  or  happiness. 
This  last  is  the  passive  aspect  of  Cost.  Thus,  for  example,  if  I  paint  pictures  or 
manufacture  watches  for  sale,  the  cost,  and  consequently  the  price  at  which  I  must 
sell  them,  to  deal  upon  the  equitable  principle,  is  the  amount  of  labor  contained 
in  them;  but,  if  I  have  in  my  jiossession — not  as  an  article  of  merchandise,  but 
for  my  own  pleasure  and  convenience  —  a  watch  or  a  favorite  painting,  —  say,  for 
example,  it  is  a  present  from  a  friend,  for  Mthich  reason  I  attach  to  it  a  particular 
value,  —  and  you,  taking  a  fancy  to  it,  wish  to  induce  me  to  part  with  it,  then  the 
legitimate  measure  of  price  is  the  amount  of  sacrifice  which  it  is  to  me, — in  other 
words,  the  degree  of  repugnance  which  I  feel  to  surrendering  it,  how  much  soever 
that  may  exceed  the  positive  Cost  of  the  article,  and  whatever  relation  it  may  hold 
to  its  positive  Value. 

115.  It  is  the  same,  as  already  observed,  even  with  reference  to  natural  wealth, 
in  which  there  is  no  positive  Cost,  and  so  of  everything  which  we  require,  in  kind, 
for  our  own  use.  (81.)  Thus,  for  example,  although  land  in  its  wild  state  is  not 
rightfully  the  subject  of  price,  and  although,  when  simply  enclosed,  its  positive 
Cost  is  the  labor  of  enclosing  it,  yet,  if  I  have  selected  a  pleasant  situation  for  my 
own  habitation  and  culture,  and  am  induced  to  part  with  it  for  the  accommodation 
of  another,  the  price  in  that  case  is  legitimately  augmented  by  whatever  amount 
of  repugnance  I  may  feel  to  making  the  surrender. 

.  116.  The  exact  thinker  will  readily  perceive  the  distinction  between  objects  of 
all  sorts  which  are  required  for  personal  convenience  at  the  time,  and  surplus  pro- 
perty or  capital  not  needed  for  present  use,  or  needed  only  as  the  means  of  pro- 
curing other  conveniences  by  means  of  exchange, — between  things  properly  in 
commerce,  and  things  taken  out  of  commerce  by  special  appropriation.  In  the 
latter  case  the  labor  contained  in  or  bestowed  upon  the  property  is  the  whole  of  its 
equitable  price.  In  the  former  it  is  augmented  by  the  amount  of  sacrifice  expe- 
rienced in  parting  with  it,  occasioned  by  the  present  need. 

117.  In  the  case  of  passive  or  negative  Cost, — the  mere  repugnance  to  the  sur- 
render of  what  is  at  the  time  serving  a  personal  purpose,  —  none  but  the  party 
making  the  surrender  can  know,  the  real  extent  of  the  sacrifice,  or  can  judge  with 
accuracy  of  the  equity  of  the  price  charged.  Hence,  with  reference  to  things  not 
properly  in  commerce,  a  common  average  of  estimate  cannot  be  attained  as  in  the 
ordinary  case  of  exchanges.  (195.)  But  even  here  the  operation  of  the  principle 
is  quite  distinct  from  that  of  value  as  the  limit  of  price.  The  party  making  the 
surrender  will  satisfy  his  own  conscience  by  estimating  the  degree  of  sacrifice  to 


88  The  Science  of  Society. 

him,  and  not  as  under  the  vahie  standard  by  estimating  the  degree  of  the  want  of 
the  other  party.  In  other  words,  whenever  he  has  arrived  at  a  price  which  he 
would  prefer  to  take  rather  than  not  sell,  he  is  restrained  from  going  farther,  with- 
out inquiring  whether  he  has  reached  the  highest  point  to  which  the  purchaser 
would  go.  This  distinction  between  the  active  Cost  of  the  labor  of  production  and 
the  passive  Cost  of  surrender  is  important  in  various  ways,  and  especially,  as  we 
shall  see,  in  settling  the  question  of  interest  or  rent  on  capital.  (226.) 

118.  As  it  is  the  positive  Cost  of  the  labor  of  production,  alone,  which  relates 
to  things  properly  in  commerce,  it  is  that  which  is  usually  meant  by  Cost,  unless 
the  repugnance  of  surrender  is  especially  mentioned  in  addition. 

119.  There  is  still  another  observation  in  relation  to  the  comprehensiveness  of 
the  term  Cost.  Although  it  refers  back,  in  its  rigid  technical  sense,  to  the  original 
labor  of  production,  measured  by  its  repugnance,  and  fixes  the  price  in  labor,  still 
it  holds  good  as  the  equitable  measure  of  price  with  reference  to  all  articles  pur- 
chased with  money,  under  the  present  system,  and  not  traced  back  to  their  com- 
ponent, labor.  Thus  an  article  purchased  for  a  given  price  in  money,  and  sold 
again  for  the  same  amount  of  money,  plus  the  labor  of  the  transaction,  is  sold  for 
Cost.  The  Cost  Principle  is,  therefore,  merely  the  entire  abandonment  of  profit  making, 
whether  it  relates  to  labor  production  or  dealings  in  money.  The  method  of  keep- 
ing a  shop  and  selling  goods  upon  the  Cost  Principle,  during  the  transition  period, 
— that  is,  while  the  community  is  too  small  to  supply  all  its  own  wants,  —  is  to 
charge  for  each  article  its  original  money  Cost  with  all  the  money  charges  and  con- 
tingencies, in  money,  and  the  labor  of  buying,  handling,  and  selling,  in  labor,  the 
time  occupied  in  the  transaction  being  measured  by  the  clock,  and  charged  accord- 
ing to  the  estimated  repugnance  of  that  kind  of  labor.  A  yard  of  cloth  is,  there- 
fore, so  many  cents  in  money  and  so  many  minutes  in  labor.  The  particulars  of 
the  management  of  such  stores,  and  the  immense  power  which  they  exert  over  the 
commercial  habits  of  large  districts  of  country  within  their  influence,  will  be  shown 
in  Mr.  Warren's  work  on  Practical  Details. 

120.  The  comprehensiveness  of  the  term  Labor  needs  also  to  be  defined.  By 
Labor  is  meant,  in  the  first  place,  not  merely  manual,  but  intellectual  and  oral  la- 
bor as  well,  —  whatever  is  done  or  performed  by  the  hand,  head,  or  tongue,  and 
which  involves  repugnance  or  painfulness  overcome, — the  measure  of  price  being 
based  upon  the  well-known  principle  that  man  naturally  seeks  the  agreeable  and 
shuns  that  which  is  disagreeable  or  painful. 

121.  In  the  second  place,  the  Labor  by  which  price  is  measured  is  not  always 
merely  the  particular  performance  done  at  the  time.  Whatever  has  required  an 
especial  skill  obtained  by  previous  labor,  unproductive  at  the  time,  has  its  price 
augmented  by  its  own  due  proportion  of  such  loss,  from  previous  necessary  unpro- 
ductive labor.  For  example,  the  surgeon  may  equitably  charge  for  each  surgical 
operation  not  only  the  time  occupied  in  it,  measxired  by  its  repugnance,  but  an  ail- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  89 

quot  portion  of  the  time  necessarily  expended  in  acquiring  the  knowledge  to  enable 
him  to  do  it  in  a  skilful  manner,  according  to  the  i-epugnance  to  hiiu  of  that  pre- 
liminary labor.  So  of  every  other  necessary  contingency, — all  necessary  contin- 
gencies, such  as  prior  preparatory  labor,  risk  incurred,  etc.,  entering  into  and  constitut- 
ing a  portion  of  Cost. 

122.  It  results  from  what  has  been  said  that  the  basis  of  vendible  property  is 
human  labor,  and  that  the  measure  of  such  property  is  the  amount  of  labor  which 
there  is,  so  to  speak,  laid  up  in  the  article  owned.  The  article  is  the  product  of 
labor,  and  is  therefore  the  representative  of  labor.  Price  is  that  which  is  given 
either  for  labor  directly,  or  for  property,  which  is  the  product  of  labor,  —  that  is, 
for  labor  indirectly,  and  it  should  therefore  be  a  precise  equivalent  for  that  labor. 
The  only  proper  ground  of  difference,  then,  between  the  price  of  a  side-saddle  and 
the  price  of  a  house  is  the  difference  in  the  amount  of  human  labor  which  has  been 
bestowed  upon  the  one  and  upon  the  other.  It  follows,  again,  that  the  mode  of  ar- 
riving at  the  legitimate  price  of  any  article  whatever  is  to  reduce  it  first  to  labor. 
For  example :  if  we  take  a  house  to  pieces,  we  trace  it  back  to  trees  growing  in  the 
woods,  to  clay,  and  sand,  and  lime,  and  iron,  etc.,  lying  in  the  earth.  All  that 
makes  it  a  house,  and  entitles  it  to  a  price,  as  property,  is  the  human  labor  that 
there  is  in  it.  That  house  over  the  way  is,  then,  so  many  hours  of  labor  at  brick- 
making,  so  many  hours  of  carpenter's  work,  so  many  of  lime-burning,  so  many  of 
iron-work,  nail-cutting,  so  many  at  glass-blowing,  so  many  at  hauling,  so  many  at 
planning,  draughting,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  The  whole  house  is  nothing  but  human  labor 
dried,  preserved,  laid  away.  Each  of  these  hours  of  labor  in  different  occupations 
may  have  a  different  degree  of  repugnance,  so  that  to  estimate  the  gross  amount 
of  labor  in  the  house  it  is  necessary  to  bring  them  all  to  a  common  denomination. 
This  is  done  by  reducing  them  to  the  standard  degree  of  repugnance  in  the  stan- 
dard labor, — corn-raising,  —  which  is  then  expressed  in  the  standard  product  of 
that  kind  of  labor, — namely,  so  many  pounds  of  corn.  Hence  the  price  of  a  house, 
or  of  any  other  object,  is  said  to  be  so  many  pounds,  or  so  many  hours,  meaning 
so  many  pounds  of  corn,  or  so  many  hours  of  labor  at  corn-raising,  in  the  same 
manner  as  we  now  say  so  many  dollars  and  cents.  By  this  means  all  price  is  con- 
stantly referred  to  labor,  and  rendered  definite,  instead  of  being  referred  to  a 
standard  which  is  itself  continually  expanding  and  contracting  by  all  the  contin- 
gencies of  speculation  or  trade.  (77.) 

123.  The  first  point  is  to  obtam  a  standard  for  a  single  locality,  after  which  it 
is  quite  easy  to  adjust  the  standard  of  other  localities  to  it.  Agricultural  labor  is 
first  selected,  because  it  is  the  great  staple  branch  of  human  industry.  The  most 
staple  article  of  agricultural  product  is  then  taken,  which  for  this  country,  and  es- 
pecially for  the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  is  Indian  corn.  In  another  country 
it  may  be  wheat  or  something  else,  although  Indian  corn,  wherever  it  is  produced, 
will  be  found  to  have  more  of  the  appropriate  qualities  for  a  standard  than  any 


90  The  Science  of  Society. 

other  article  whatsoever,  being  more  invariable  in  quality,  more  uniform  in  the 
amount  produced  by  the  same  amount  of  labor  in  a  given  locality,  and  more  uni- 
form in  the  extent  of  the  demand  than  any  other  article.  At  a  given  locality,  or, 
as  I  have  stated,  at  a  great  variety  of  localities  in  the  Western  States,  the  standard 
product  of  Indian  corn  is  twenty  pounds  to  the  hour's  labor,  —  the  measurement 
by  pounds  being  also  more  inflexible  or  less  variant  than  that  by  bulk.  If,  then, 
in  some  other  locality, — as,  for  example.  New  England, — the  product  of  an  hour's 
labor  devoted  to  raising  corn  is  only  ten* pounds  of  corn,  the  equivalent  of  the  stan- 
dard hour's  labor  there  will  be  ten  pounds  of  corn,  while  in  the  West  it  will  be 
twenty  pounds.  It  is  the  hour's  labor  in  that  species  of  agriculture  which  is  there- 
fore the  actual  unit  of  comparison,  of  which  the  product,  whatever  it  may  be,  is 
the  local  representative.  And  in  the  same  manner,  in  another  country  wheat  may 
be  the  standard, — as,  for  example,  in  England,  —  and  may  be  reckoned  at  ten 
pounds  to  the  hour,  or  whatever  is  found  by  trial  to  be  the  fact.  The  reduction 
of  the  standard  of  one  locality  to  that  of  another  will  then  be  no  more  difficult 
than  the  reduction  of  different  currencies  to  one  value,  as  now  practised. 

124:.  There  is  an  absolute  necessity  for  some  standard  of  cost,  and  it  is  not  a 
question  of  principle,  but  of  expediency,  what  article  is  adopted.  It  is  the  same 
necessity  which  is  recognized  at  present  for  a  standard  of  value,  which  is  sought 
for,  and  by  some  persons  erroneously  supposed  to  be  found,  in  money.  The  ques- 
tion may  still  be  asked:  Why  not  employ  money  as  the  standard  with  which  to 
compare  other  things,  and  as  a  circulating  medium,  as  is  done  now?  The  answer 
is  found  in  the  uncertain  and  fluctuating  nature  of  money, — in  the  fact  that  it  re- 
presents nothing  definite. 

125.  Money  has  professedly  two  uses :  (1)  as  a  standard  of  value,  and  (2)  as  a 
circulating  medium. 

First,  then,  as  a  standard  of  value,  or  a  measure  with  which  to  compare  other 
values.  It  does  not  even  profess  to  be  a  standard  of  cost.  It  has  no  relation  what- 
ever to  the  cost,  or,  in  other  words,  to  the  labor  which  there  is  in  the  different 
commodities  for  which  it  is  given  as  price,  because  there  is  no  question  about  cost 
in  existing  commerce,  the  value  alone  being  taken  into  account.  But  value  is  in- 
capable of  a  scientific  estimate,  as  will  be  more  specifically  shown  in  the  next  chap- 
ter. (13i.)  Hence  it  is  fluctuating  because  it  relates  to  nothing  definite.  But 
what  are  the  capacities  of  the  yard-stick  itself?  Is  it  fixed  or  elastic?  The  theory 
is  that  gold  and  silver  are  selected  as  standards  of  value  because  the  quantity  of 
those  commodities  in  the  world  is  more  uniform  than  that  of  most  other  articles. 
If  the  fact  be  granted,  then  gold  and  silver  have  one  of  the  fitting  properties  of  a 
standard.  But  gold  and  silver  are  not  convenient  as  a  circulating  medium.  Hence 
paper  money  is  assumed  as  a  representative  of  specie.  So  far  very  well  again. 
There  was  a  time  when  bank-paper  was  an  exact  representation  of  specie,  if  it  re- 
presented nothing  else.     The  old  bank  of  Amsterdam,  the  mother  of  the  banking 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  91 

system,  issued  only  dollar  for  dollar.  Her  bills  were  merely  certificates  of  deposit 
for  so  much  specie.  So  far,  then,  the  yard-stick  did  not  stretch  nor  contract,  while 
the  paper  money  was  more  convenient  as  a  medium  of  circulation  than  the  specie. 
But  with  the  development  of  the  banking  system  two,  three,  five,  or  more  dollars 
of  paper  money  are  issued  for  one  dollar  of  specie  on  deposit.  The  amount  is  then 
expanded  and  contracted,  according  to  the  fluctuations  of  trade  and  the  judgments 
or  speculating  interests  of  perhaps  five  hundred  different  boards  of  bank  directors. 
How  is  it,  then,  with  the  inflexibility  of  your  standard?  Your  yard-stick  is  one 
year  one  foot  long  and  the  next  year  five  feet  long.  The  problem  of  existing 
finance,  then,  is  to  measure  values  which  are  in  their  nature  positively  incapable  of 
measurement,  by  money,  which  is  in  its  nature  positively  incapable  of  measuring 
any  thing.     It  is  therefore  uncertainty  y^  fluctuation  =  price. 

126.  There  is  no  such  thing,  therefore,  in  money  as  a  standard  of  value.  .  As  a 
circulating  medium  merely,  considering  no  other  properties,  nor  the  reasons  why 
we  should  have  a  circulating  medium  at  all,  nothing  better,  can  be  devised  than 
paper  money.    It  is  thin,  light,  pliant,  and  convenient  in  all  respects. 

127.  To  make  gold  the  standard  of  cost,  instead  of  value,  would  be  to  take  as 
much  gold  as  is  ordinarily  dug  in  an  hour  in  those  countries  where  it  is  procured 
— say  California — as  the  price  of  an  hour's  labor  in  other  branches  of  industry 
equally  troublesome  and  repugnant.  This  may  perhaps  be  one  dollar,  which  would 
make  the  price  of  labor  a  dollar  an  hour,  and  the  difference  between  that  price  in 
this  article  and  the  usual  price  of  labor  in  the  same  article — which  is  rendered  ne- 
cessary now,  as  the  means  of  acquiring  all  other  commodities — is  some  indication 
of  the  degree  to  which  labor  is  x'obbed  by  adopting  the  value  standard  instead  of  the 
cost  standard  of  price.  But  the  fact  is  that  no  average  of  the  product  of  gold- 
digging  can  be  made.  It  is  proverbially  uncertain.  The  product  of  gold,  there- 
fore, regarded  as  a  standard  of  any  thing,  is  as  nearly  worthless  as  the  product  of 
any  article  can  be.  The  demand  for  it  in  the  arts  is  also  exceptional  and  uncer- 
tain. Apart  from  the  factitious  demand  resulting  from  the  fact  that  it  is  made  a 
nominal  standard  and  a  medium,  it  is  not  in  any  sense  a  staple  article.  It  would 
be  just  as  philosophical  to  measure  all  other  industry  by  the  product  of  the  mack- 
erel fishery,  or  the  manufacture  of  rock  candy  or  castor  oil,  as  it  would  be  to 
measure  it  by  gold.  The  result  of  all  this  investigation  is  therefore  this :  that  the 
product  of  gold,  and,  for  the  same  reason,  that  of  silver,  is  quite  unfit  for  the  first 
purpose  we  have  in  view,  which  is  to  select  a  staple  species  of  labor  with  which  to 
compare  other  labor,  while  corn  or  wheat  does  fulfill  those  conditions;  and  (2) 
that  paper  is  just  what  is  wanted  as  a  circulating  medium,  provided  it  can  be  made 
to  rest  upon  a  proper  basis,  and  represent  what  ought  to  be  represented  by  a  cir- 
culating medium. 

128.  Now,  what  is  it  which  ought  to  be  represented  by  a  circulating  medium  ? 
Clearly  it  is  price, — the  price  of  commodities.     The  pledge  or  promise  should  be 


92  The  Science  of  Society. 

exactly  equivalent  to,  as  it  stands  in  the  place  of,  the  commodity  or  commodities 
to  be  given  hereafter.  These  commodities,  which  the  paper  stands  in  the  place  of, 
are  the  price  of  what  was  received.  The  equitable  limit  of  price  is,  we  have  seen, 
the  cost  of  the  articles  received.  The  promise  is  therefore  rightly  the  equivalent 
of,  or  goes  to  the  extent  of,  the  cost  of  the  articles  received.  But  the  cost  of  an 
article  is,  we  have  seen,  the  labor  there  is  in  it,  rightly  measured.  Every  issue  of 
the  circulating  medium  should  therefore  be  a  representative  of,  or  pledge  for,  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  human  labor,  or  for  some  commodity  which  has  in  it  an  equal 
amount  of  human  labor;  and,  to  avoid  all  question  about  what  commodity  shall  be 
substituted,  it  is  proper  that  a  staple  or  standard  article,  the  cost  of  which  aU  agree  •' 
upon,  should  be  selected. 

We  return,  then,  to  the  Labor  Note  as  the  legitimate  germ  of  a  circulating 
medium. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price, 


93 


CHAPTER  IV. 

VALUE  DISTINGUISHED  FBOM  COST. 

129.  The  second  grand  result  from  the  principle  of  Equity — Cost  the  Limit  of 
Price — is  that  the  value  of  labor  or  of  a  commodity  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  legiti-  "^ 
mately  with  fixing  the  price  of  the  labor  or  commodity.  This  proposition  would  be 
deduced  partially  from  what  has  been  already  shown;  it  requires,  however,  to  be 
more  explicitly  stated  and  more  conclusively  demonstrated.  It  is,  as  well  as  the 
result,  considered  in  the  last  chapter  in  relation  to  natural  skill  or  talent,  quite 
new,  and  therefore  surprising. 

130.  There  is  certainly  nothing  more  reasonable,  according  to  existing  ideas, 
than  that  "a  thing  ought  to  bring  what  it  is  worth."  No  proposition  could  be  more 
seemingly  innocent  upon  the  face  of  it  than  that.  (19.)  There  is  no  statement 
upon  any  subject  upon  which  mankind  would  more  generally  concur,  and  yet  that 
statement  covers  a  fallacy  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  prevalent  system  of  exploita- 
tion or  civilized  cannibalism.  It  is  precisely  at  this  point  that  the  whole  world  has 
committed  its  most  fatal  blunder.  It  will  be  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  expose 
that  error  so  obviously  that  it  can  no  longer  lurk  in  obscurity  even  in  the  least 
enlightened  mind.  To  that  end  I  beg  the  especial  attention  of  the  reader  to  the 
technical  distinction  between  Value  and  Cost,  —  a  point  of  great  importance  to  this 
whole  discussion. 

131.  "What  a  thing  is  worth"  is  another  expression  for  the  Value  of  a  com-  T  r  -r 
modity  or  labor.  The  Value  of  a  commodity  or  labor  is  the  degree  of  benefit  which  it  <^^^^ 
confers  upon  the  person  who  receives  it,  or  to  whose  use  it  is  applied.     The  Cost  of  it  is, 

on  the  other  hand,  as  already  explained,  the  degree  of  burden  which  the  production  of 
the  commodity  or  the  performance  of  the  labor  imposed  upon  the  person  who  produced  or 
performed  it.     They  are  therefore  by  rfo  means  the  same.     No  two  things  can  pos- 
sibly be  more  distinct.     The  burden  or  cost  may  be  very  great  and  the  benefit  or 
value  very  little,  or  vice  versa.     In  the  case  of  an  exchange  or  transfer  of  an  article  ? 
from  one  person  to  another,  the  Cost  relates  to  the  party  who  makes  the  transfer,  ) 
the  burden  of  the  production  falling  on  him,  and  the  Value  to  the  party  to  whom  } 
the  transfer  is  made,  the  article  going  to  his  benefit.     It  is  the  same  if  the  object 
exchanged  is  labor  directly.    It  follows,  therefore,  that  to  say  that  "a  thing  should 
bring  what  it  is  worth,"  which  is  the  same  as  to  say  that  its  price  should  be  measured 
by  its  value,  is  quite  the  opposite  of  affirming  that  it  should  bring  as  much  as  it  cost 
the  producer  to  produce  it.     Hence,  both  rules  cannot  be  true,  for  they  conflict  with 


94  The  Science  of  Society. 

and  destroy  each  other.  But  we  have  already  seea  that  it  is  exactly  equitable  that 
Cost  be  adopted  as  the  universal  limit  of  price,  —  in  other  words,  that  as  much  bur- 
den shall  be  assumed  by  each  party  to  the  exchange  as  is  imposed  upon  the  oppo- 
site party.  Consequently  the  accepted  axiom  of  trade  that  "  a  thing  should  bring 
what  it  is  worth  "  proves,  when  tested  by  simply  balancing  the  scales  of  Equity,  to 
be  not  only  erroneous,  but,  so  to  speak,  the  antipodes  of  the  true  principle.  Such 
is  the  result  when  we  recur  to  fundamental  investigation.  It  will  be  rendered 
equally  obvious  in  the  sequel,  by  a  comparison  of  the  consequences  of  the  two  prin- 
ciples in  operation,  that  Cost  is  the  true  and  Value  the  false  measure  of  price. 

132.  But  although  Value  is  not  the  legitimate  limit  of  Price  nor  even  an  ele- 
ment in  the  price,  it  is,  nevertheless,  an  element  in  the  bargain.  It  is  the  Value  of 
the  thing  to  be  acquired  which  determines  the  purchaser  to  purchase.  It  belongs  to  the 
man  who  labors  or  produces  an  article,  estimating  for  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
amount  of  burden  he  has  assumed,  to  fix  the  price,  measured  by  that  burden  or 
Cost.  He  alone  knows  it,  and  he  alone,  therefore,- can  determine  it.  It  belongs, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  the  purchaser  to  estimate  for  himself  the  Value  of  the  labor 
or  commodity  to  him.  He  alone  can  do  so  in  fact,  for  he  alone  knows  the  nature 
of  his  own  wants.  By  the  settlement  of  the  first  point  —  the  Cost  to  the  producer 
—  the  Price  becomes  a  fixed  sum.  If  the  Value  then  exceeds  that  sum  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  other  party,  he  will  purchase;  otherwise,  not.  Hence  the  Value, 
though  not  an  element  in  the  Price,  is  an  element  in  the  bargain.  The  Price  is  a 
consideration  wholly  for  the  vender,  and  the  Value  a  consideration  wholly  for  the 
purchaser. 

133.  As  this  is  also  a  point  of  great  importance,  let  us  state  it  again.  If  you 
require  and  desire  to  obtain  one  hour  or  one  year  of  my  services,  or  the  results  of 
those  services  in  commodities,  which  is  the  same  thing,  it  is  a  matter  which  does 
not  concern  me, — it  is  impertinence  on  my  part  to  concern  myself  with  the  ques- 
tion of  the  degree  of  benefit  you  will  derive  from  such  services.  That  is  purely  a 
question  for  your  own  consideration,  and  determines  you  whether  you  can  afford 
to  give  me  the  equitable  price  of  my  labor, — whether  the  value  to  you  equals  the 
cost  to  me,  —  that  is,  it  determines  the  demand.  Your  estimate  of  that  value  or  bene- 
fit to  you  may  be  based  on  considerations  obvious  to  others,  or  upon  a  mere  whim 
or  caprice  to  the  gratification  of  which  others  would  attach  no  importance.  But 
it  belongs  to  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  to  gratify  even  one's  whims  or  ca- 
prices without  hindrance  or  interference  from  others,  at  his  own  cost,  which  is, 
when  the  services  of  others  are  required  to  that  end,  by  paying  to  them  the  cost  to 
them  of  such  services. 

134.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  an  impertinence  for  you,  in  the  case  sup- 
posed, to  attempt  to  settle  for  me  the  degree  of  attraction  or  repugnance  which 
there  is  to  me  in  the  performance  of  the  services  which  you  require.  No  one  else 
but  myself  can  possibly  know  that.     No  one  else  can  therefore  fix  a  just  price  up- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  95 

ou  my  labor.  Hence  it  follows  that  both  value  and  cost  enter  into  a  bargain,  even 
when  legitimately  made.  But  value  goes  solely  to  determine  the  demand,  and  is 
solely  cognizable  by  the  purchaser  or  consumer, — by  him  who  receives,  whUe  cost  (or 
burden)  goes  to  determine  the  price,  and  is  solely  cognizable  by  the  seller  or  pro- 
ducer,—  by  him  who  renders.  By  this  means  the  cost  of  each  one's  acts  is  made  to 
fall  on  himself,  which  is  the  essential  condition  to  the  rightful  exercise  of  the  Sov- 
ereignty of  the  Individual.  If  you  over-estimate  the  value  to  you  of  my  services, 
you  endure  the  cost  or  disagreeable  consequences  of  your  mistake  or  want  of  judg- 
ment. If  I,  ou  the  other  hand,  under-estimate  the  cost  or  endurance  of  the  per- 
formance to  me,  the  cost  of  that  error  falls  on  me,  submitting  each  of  us  to  the 
government  of  consequences,  the  only  legitimate  corrective.  If,  again,  I  over- 
estimate the  cost  to  me  and  ask  a  price  greater  than  your  estimate  of  the  value  to 
you,  there  is  no  bargain,  and  I  have  lost  the  opportunity  of  earning  a  price  mea- 
sured by  the  real  cost  of  the  performance,  so  that  the  cost  of  my  mistake  falls  again 
on  me;  while — the  market  being  open,  and  a  thorough  adjustment  of  supply  to 
demand  being  established— others  will  make  a  juster  estimate,  whose  services  you 
will  procure,  and  you  will  suffer  no  inconvenience.  Competition  wiU  regulate  any 
disposition  on  my  part  to  overcharge.  (160.) 

135.  All  this  is  reversed  in  our  existing  commerce.  The  vender  adjusts  his 
price  to  what  he  supposes  to  be  its  value  to  the  purchaser, — that  is,  to  the  degree 
of  want  in  which  the  purchaser  is  found,  —  never  to  what  the  commodity  cost  him- 
self; thus  interfering  with  what  cannot  concern  him,  except  as  a  means  of  taking 
an  undue  advantage.  The  purchaser,  on  the  other  hand,  offers  a  price  based  up- 
on his  knowledge  or  sm-mise  of  what  the  degree  of  want  of  the  vender  may  force 
him  to  consent  to  take.    Hence  the  cannibalism  of  trade. 

136.  But  it  is  objected  that  in  the  case  supposed  above,  while  nominally  adjust- 
ing my  price  to  the  degree  of  repugnance  to  myself,  I  may  in  fact  take  into  account 
the  degree  of  your  want,  and  charge  you  as  much  as  I  think  you  will  endure.  This 
objection,  otherwise  statedj  is  simply  this, — that  the  Individual,  in  the  exercise  of 
his  sovereign  freedom,  may  abandon  the  Cost  Principle,  or,  in  other  words,  the 
true  principle,  and  return  to  the  value,  or  false  principle.  That  is,  in  other  words, 
again,  simply  to  affirm  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  true  principle  to  force  the  In- 
dividual to  comply  with  it,  to  the  extent  of  depriving  him  of  his  freedom  to  do 
otherwise.  This  is  gi'anted.  Any  such  compulsion  would  infringe  upon  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual,  which  is,  if  possible,  still  more  import- 
ant than  the  Cost  Principle  itself.  Once  for  all  let  it  be  distinctly  understood  that 
the  principles  of  Equitable  Commerce  do  not  serve  directly  and  mainly  to  coerce 
men  into  true  or  harmonic  relations  when  destitute  of  the  desire  for  such  relations. 
Their  first  office  is,  on  the  other  hand,  to  inform  those  who  do  desire  such  rela- 
tions, how  they  may  be  attained.  If  it  is  assumed  that  there  are  no  such  persons, 
tlien,  certainly,  the  supply  of  true  principles,  of  any  sort,  is  a  supply  without  a  de- 
mand,—  but  not  otherwise. 


r  y 


96  The  Science  of  Society. 

137.  The  secondary  or  indirect  effect  of  true  commercial  principles  in  operation 
will  be,  however,  correctional,  and  in  one  sense  coercive,  but  coercive  in  a  sense 
entirely  compatible  with  freedom.  It  wiU  be  to  throw  the  consequences  of  each 
one's  deviation  from  right  practice  upon  himself,  leaving  him  free  to  exercise  his 
own  Sovereignty,  but  free  to  do  so,  as  he  ought,  at  his  own  cost,  while  they  will 
surround  him  with  a  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  honesty  more  potent  than  laws, 
at  the  same  time  that  they  will  remove  the  temptations  now  existing  to  infringe 
the  rights  of  others.  It  will  be  seen  at  another  point  that  competition,  which  is 
now  the  tyi-ant  that  forces  men  to  be  dishonest,  will,  under  these  principles,  operate 
with  equal  power  to  induce  them  to  be  honest.  (160,  206.) 

138.  An  Ulustratiou  of  the  entire  disconnection  between  Price  and  the  Value 
to  the  pm-chaser  is  found  in  the  one-price  store,  in  existing  commerce.  Upon  this 
plan  of  trade  the  prices  are  fixed  by  the  merchant-vender  of  the  goods,  and  each 
article  is  labeled  at  a  fixed  and  invariable  amount.  The  customer  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  fixing  those  prices.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  purchaser 
alone  who  determines  whether  the  Value  of  an  article  to  him  is  sufficient  to  induce 
him  to  purchase  at  the  price  fixed.  In  these  particulars  the  operation  is  the  same 
as  that  of  Equitable  Commerce.  It  differs,  however,  in  the  essential  particular  that 
the  merchant,  in  fixing  his  prices,  is  governed  by  no  scientific  principle.  The 
prices  are  not  adjusted  by  any  equitable  standard.  They  rest  upon  an  uncertain 
and  fluctuating  basis,  partly  Cost,  partly  the  necessities  or  cupidity  of  the  vender, 
and  partly  the  supply  and  demand  or  the  supposed  Value  to  the  purchaser.  Value 
is  thus  made  actually  an  element  of  the  price  in  a  general  way,  though  not  in  the 
particular  case.  The  vender  refuses  to  vary  his  price  according  to  the  particular 
Value  to  the  particular  pm-chaser,  but  he  has  previously  taken  into  the  account 
the  general  value  to  purchasers  at  large.  The  case  is  only  good,  therefore,  to  illus- 
trate the  single  point  for  which  it.  was  adduced,  —  namely,  the  separability  of  Price 
and  Value  to  the  purchaser,— the  fact  that  they  are  not  necessarily  commingled 
with  each  other.  The  ticket  at  the  theatre,  the  public  lecture,  the  railroad,  etc., 
furnishes  another  illustration  of  the  same  fact.  The  price  is  invariable,  and  the 
purchaser  is  left  to  determine  for  himself  whether  the  Value  equals  the  Cost;  if  so 
in  his  opinion,  there  is  a  bargain,  otherwise  not. 

139.  As  respects  the  propriety  of  measuring  Price  by  Value,  in  the  first  place, 
it  is  essentially  impossible  to  measure  Value  exactly,  or,  in  other  words,  to  ascertain 
the  precise  worth  of  labor  or  commodities. 

Cost  is  a  thing  which  looks  to  the  past,  and  is  therefore  certain.  Value  is  a 
thing  which  looks  to  the  future,  and  is  therefore  contingent  and  uncertain.  A 
bushel  of  potatoes  lies  before  us.  It  is  possible  to  estimate  with  accuracy  how 
much  human  labor  it  ordinarily  takes  to  produce  that  amount  of  that  article,  and 
how  disagreeable  the  labor  is  as  compared  with  other  kinds,  and  then  we  have  the 
/^  ^   standard  cost  of  the  article;  but  who  will  undertake  to  say  what  the  value  of  that 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  97 

bushel  of  potatoes  is  as  it  stands  in  the  market?  Value,  remember,  is  the  degree  >y^ 
of  benefit  it  will  confer  upon  the  person  or  persons  who  are  to  consume  it.  That 
value,  it  is  obrious,  will  vary  with  every  one  of  the  fifty  thousand  persons  in  the 
city  who  may  chance  to  purchase  it,  and  will  vary  with  the  extremes  of  saving- 
twenty  human  lives  (as  it  may  do  on  shipboard,  for  example)  and  nothing  at  all, 
for  the  potatoes  may  stock  a  larder  already  overstocked  and  be  permitted  to  decay, 
appropriated  to  no  beneficial  purpose  whatsoever.  As  every  one  of  the  twenty 
starving  persons  would  gladly  have  given  at  least  ten  thousand  dollars  for  his  share 
of  the  potatoes  rather  than  not  have  had  them,  the  value  of  the  bushel  of  potatoes 
is  any  thing  between  cipher  and  two  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

Take  a  more  complicated  case.  It  is  possible  to  calculate  how  much  it  costs, 
down  to  the  fraction  of  a  cent  (or,  more  properly,  of  an  hour's  labor),  to  convey  a 
man  from  New  York  to  Albany  on  a  first-class  steamboat, — the  Isaac  Newton  or 
the  Hendrick  Hudson  for  example,  —  taking  into  account  the  cost  of  construction, 
the  cost  of  running,  the  number  of  persons  regularly  traveling  among  whom  the 
expense  is  to  be  divided,  etc.  But  who  will  undertake  to  calculate  the  different 
values  of  a  trip  up  the  Hudson  to  the  eight  hundred  or  a  thousand  persons  who 
gather  at  the  wharf  at  the  departure  of  one  of  those  magnificent  boats?  One  is 
neglecting  his  business  at  home  and  going  on  a  speculation  in  which  he  will  lose  a 
thousand  doUars.  How  much  is  the  trip  worth  to  him?  There  is  a  bridegroom 
and  bride  going  off  to  enjoy  the  honeymoon.  How  much  in  hard  money  is  the 
trip  worth  to  them?  There  stands  a  poor  invalid  who  hopes  to  recover  a  little 
health  by  the  cool  breezes  on  the  quiet  river.  There  is  a  young  man  fresh  from 
school,  just  starting  out  to  see  the  world  and  gratify  his  curiositj^  There  is  a 
sharper  who  will  cheat  somebody  out  of  a  few  hundreds  before  he  gets  back,  and 
so  on.  What  is  the  Value  to  each  of  these  of  a  trip  up  the  Hudson?  Value  is  the 
benefit  to  be  done  to  each.  How  big  is  a  piece  of  chalk?  How  much  is  consider- 
able? How  far  is  a  good  ways?  And  yet  all  the  political  economy,  all  the  cal- 
culations of  finance,  all  the  banking,  all  the  trading  and  commercial  transactions 
iu  the  world,  are  based  upon  the  idea  of  the  measurement  and  comparison  of" 
Values.  Even  Mr.  Kellogg,  Mr.  Gray,  and  others  who  write  as  financial  reformers, 
and  whose  labors  in  demonstrating  the  oppressive  operation  of  interest  or  rent  on 
money  are  invaluable,  fall  into  the  same  error.  Mr.  Kellogg  has  a  chapter  "On 
the  Power  of  Money  to  Measure  Value,"  and  asserts  without  question  that  this  is 
one  of  the  legitimate  functions  of  a  circulating  medium. 

140.  It  is  possible,  it  is  true,  for  parties  to  form  an  estimate  of  relative  values, 
based  upon  their  present  knowledge  of  all  future  contingencies,  and  thus  to  prefer 
one  thing  to  another  in  a  certain  ratio;  but  the  very  next  event  which  occurs  may 
show  the  calculation  of  chances  to  have  been  entirely  fallacious,  and  the  real  value 
of  the  object,  on  the  one  hand  or  the  other,  to  be  entirely  different  from  what  was 
anticipated.     Hence,  every  exchange,  based  upon  the  comparison  of  values,  is  a 


98  Tlie  Science  of  Society, 

speculation  upon  the  probabilities  of  the  future,  and  not  a  scientific  measurement 
of  that  which  already  exists.  All  trade  under  the  existing  system  is  therefore 
speculation,  in  kind,  the  uncertainty  differing  in  degree,  and  all  speculation  is 
gambling,  or  the  staking  of  risks  against  risks.  The  instrument  of  measurement 
is  equally  defective,  as  has  been  already  shown  in  discussing  the  nature  of  money. 
(77,  125.) 

141.  In  the  next  place,  if  it  were  possible  to  measure  Values  precisely,  the  ex- 
change of  commodities  according  to  Value  would  still  be  a  system  of  mutual  conquest  and 
oppression,  —  not  a  beneficent  reciprocation  of  equivalents.  This  will  appear  by 
one  or  two  simple  illustrations. 

142.  I.  —  Suppose  I  am  a  wheelwright  in  a  small  village,  and  the  only  one  of 
my  trade.  You  are  traveling  with  certain  valuables  in  your  carriage,  which  breaks 
down  opposite  my  shop.  It  wiH  take  an  horn-  of  my  time  to  mend  the  carriage. 
You  can  get  no  other  means  of  conveyance,  and  the  loss  to  you,  if  you  fail  to  arrive 
at  the  neighboring  town  in  season  for  the  sailing  of  a  certain  vessel,  will  be  five 
hundred  dollars,  which  fact  you  mention  to  me,  in  good  faith,  in  order  to  quicken 
my  exertions.  I  give  one  hour  of  my  work  and  mend  the  carriage.  What  am  I 
in  equity  entitled  to  charge  —  what  should  be  the  limit  of  price  upon  my  labor? 

Let  us  apply  the  different  measures  and  see  how  they  will  operate.  If  Value  is 
the  limit  of  price,  then  the  price  of  the  hour's  labor  should  be  five  hundred  dol- 
lars. That  is  the  equivalent  of  the  value  of  the  labor  to  you.  If  cost  is  the  limit 
of  price,  then  you  should  pay  me  a  commodity,  or  commodities,  or  a  representative 
in  currency  which  will  procm'e  me  commodities,  having  in  them  one  hour's  labor 
equally  as  hard  as  the  mending  of  the  carriage,  without  the  slightest  reference  to 
the  degree  of  benefit  which  that  labor  has  bestowed  on  you :  or,  putting  the  illus- 
tration in  money,  thus ;  assuming  the  twenty-five  cents  to  be  an  equivalent  for  an 
hour's  labor  of  an  artisan  in  that  particular  trade,  then  according  to  the  Cost  Prin- 
ciple I  should  be  justified  in  asking  only  twenty-five  cents,  but  according  to  the 
Value  Principle  I  should  be  justified  in  asking  five  hundred  dollars. 

143.  The  Value  Principle,  in  some  form  of  expression,  is,  as  I  have  said,  the 
only  recognized  principle  of  trade  throughout  the  world.  "A  thing  is  worth  what 
it  will  bring  in  the  market."  Still  if  I  were  to  charge  you  five  hundred  dollars,  or 
a  fourth  part  of  that  sum,  and,  taking  advantage  of  your  necessities,  force  you  to 
pay  it,  everybody  would  denounce  me,  the  poor  wheelwright,  as  an  extortioner  and 
a  scoundrel.  Why?  Simply  because  this  is  an  unusual  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple. Wheelwrights  seldom  have  a  chance  to  make  such  a  "speculation,"  and 
therefore  it  is  not  according  to  the  "established  usages  of  trade."  Hence  its  man- 
ifest injustice  shocks,  in  such  a  case,  the  common  sense  of  right.  Meanwhile  you, 
a  wealthy  merchant,  are  daily  rolling  up  an  enormous  fortune  by  doing  business 
upon  the  same  principle  which  you  condemn  in  the  wheelwriglit,  and  nobody  finds 
fault.     At  every  scarcity  in  the  market  you  immediately  raise  the  price  of  every 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  99 

article  you  hold.  It  is  your  business  to  take  advantage  of  the  necessities  of  those 
with  whom  you  deal,  by  selling  to  them  according  to  the  Value  to  them,  and  not 
according  to  the  Cost  to  yon.  You  go  further.  You,  by  every  means  in  your 
power,  create  those  necessities  by  buying  up  particular  articles  and  holding  theni 
out  of  the  market  until  the  demand  becomes  pressing,  by  circulating  false  reports 
of  short  crops,  and  by  other  similar  tricks  known  to  the  trade.  This  is  the  same 
in  principle  as  if  the  wheelwright  had  first  dug  the  rut  in  which  your  carriage  up- 
set and  then  charged  you  the  five  hundred  dollars. 

Yet  hitherto  no  one  has  thought  of  seriously  questioning  the  principle, — namely, 
that  "  Value  is  the  limit  of  Price"  or,  in  other  words,  that  it  is  right  to  take  for  a 
thing  what  it  is  worth.  It  is  upon  this  principle  or  rnaxim  that  aU  honorable  trade 
professes  now  to  be  conducted,  until  instances  arise  in  which  its  oppressive  opera- 
tion is  so  glaring  and  repugnant  to  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  that  those  who 
carry  it  out  are  denounced  as  rogues  and  cheats.  In  this  manner  a  sort  of  conven- 
tional limit  is  placed  upon  the  application  of  a  principle  which  is  equally  the  prin- 
ciple of  every  swindling  transaction,  and  of  what  is  called  legitimate  commerce. 
The  discovery  has  not  hitherto  been  made  that  the  principle  itself  is  essentially 
vicious,  and  that  in  its  infinite  and  all-pervading  variety  of  applications  this 
vicious  principle  is  the  source  of  the  injustice,  inequality  of  condition,  and  frightful 
pauperism  and  wretchedness  which  characterize  the  existing  state  of  our  so-called 
civilization.  Still  less  has  the  discovery  been  made  that  there  is  another  simple 
principle  of  traffic  which,  once  understood  and  applied  in  practice,  will  effectually 
rectify  all  t*laose  monstrous  evils,  and  introduce  into  human  society  the  reign  of  ab- 
solute equity  in  all  property  relations,  while  it  will  lay  the  foundations  of  universal 
harmony  in  the  social  and  moral  relations  as  well. 

144.  II.  —  Suppose  it  costs  me  ten  minutes'  labor  to  concoct  a  pill  which  will 
save  your  life  when  nothing  else  will ;  and  suppose,  at  the  same  time,  to  I'ender  the 
case  simple,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  ingredients  came  to  me  by  accident,  with- 
out labor  or  cost.  It  is  clear  that  your  life  is  worth  to  you  more  than  your  fortune. 
Am  I,  then,  entitled  to  demand  of  you  for  the  nostrum  the  whole  of  your  property, 
more  or  less?  Clearly  so,  if  it  is  right  to  take  for  a  thing  what  it  is  worth,  which  is 
theoretically  the  highest  ethics  of  trade. 

145.  Forced,  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  impossibility,  existing  in  the  nature  of 
things,  of  ascertaining  and  measuring  positive  values,  or  of  determining,  in  other 
words,  what  a  thing  is  really  worth,  and  rendered  partially  conscious  by  the  obvious 
hardship  and  injustice  of  every  unusual  or  extreme  application  of  the  principle  that 
it  is  either  no  rule  or  a  bad  one,  and  not  guided  by  the  knowledge  of  any  true  prin- 
ciple out  of  the  labyrinth  of  conflicting  rights  into  which  the  false  principle  con- 
ducts, the  world  has  practically  abandoned  the  attempt  to  combine  Equity  with 
Commerce,  and  lowered  its  standard  of  morality  to  the  inverse  statement  of  the 
formula,  —  namely,  that  "A  thing  is  worth  what  it  will  bring,''  or,  in  other  words,  that 


100  The  Science  of  Society. 

it  is  fitting  and  proper  to  take  for  a  thing  vyhen  sold  whatever  can  be  got  for  it. 
This,  then,  is  what  is  denominated  the  Market  Value  of  an  article,  as  distinguished 
from  its  actual  value.  Without  being  more  equitable  as  a  measure  of  price,  it  cer- 
tainly has  a  great  practical  advantage  over  the  more  decent  theoretical  statement, 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  possible  to  ascertain  by  experiment  how  much  you  can  force 
people,  through  their  necessities,  to  give.  The  principle,  in  this  form,  measures 
the  price  by  the  degree  of  want  on  the  part  of  the  purchaser,  —  that  is,  by  what  he 
supposes  will  prove  to  be  the  value  or  benefit  to  him  of  the  commodity  purchased, 
in  comparison  with  that  of  the  one  with  which  he  parts  in  the  transaction.  Hence 
it  becomes  immediately  and  continually  the  interest  of  the  seller  to  place  the  pur- 
chaser in  a  condition  of  as  much  want  as  possible,  to  "corner"  him,  as  the  phrase 
is  in  "Wall  street,  and  force  him  to  buy  at  the  dearest  rate.  If  he  is  unable  to  in- 
crease his  actual  necessity,  he  resorts  to  every  means  of  creating  an  imaginary 
want  by  false  praises  bestowed  upon  the  qualities  and  uses  of  his  goods.  Hence 
the  usages  of  forestalling  the  market,  of  confusing  the  public  knowledge  of  Supply 
and  Demand,  of  advertising  and  puffing  worthless  commodities,  and  the  like, 
which  constitute  the  existing  commercial  system,  —  a  system  which,  in  our  age,  is 
ripening  into  putrefaction,  and  coming  to  offend  the  nostrils  of  good  taste  no  less 
than  the  innate  sense  of  right,  which,  dreadfully  vitiating  as  it  is,  it  has  failed 
wholly  to  extinguish. 

146.  The  Value  Principle  in  this  form,  as  in  the  other,  is  therefore /e/;,  without 
being  distinctly  understood,  to  be  essentially  diabolical,  and  hence  it  undergoes 
again  a  kind  of  sentimental  modification  wherever  the  sentiment  for  honesty  is 
most  potent.  This  last  and  highest  expression  of  the  doctrme  of  honesty,  as  now 
known  in  the  world,  may  be  stated  in  the  form  of  the  hostatory  precept,  "  Don't 
be  (00  bad,"  or,  "Don't  gouge  too  deep."  No  Political  Economist,  Financier, 
Moralist,  or  Religionist  has  any  more  definite  standard  of  right  in  commercial 
transactions  than  that.  It  is  not  too  much  to  affirm  that  neither  Political  Econo- 
mist, Financier,  Moralist,  nor  Religionist  knows  at  this  day,  nor  ever  has  known, 
what  it  is  to  be  honest.  The  religious  teacher,  who  exhorts  his  hearers  from  Sab- 
bath to  Sabbath  to  he  fair  in  their  dealings  with  each  other  and  with  the  outside 
world,  does  not  know,  and  could  not  for  his  life  tell,  how  much  he  is,  in  fair  deal- 
ing or  equity,  bound  to  pay  his  washerwoman  or  his  housekeeper  for  any  service 
whatever  which  they  may  render.  The  sentiment  of  honesty  exists,  but  the  science 
of  honesty  is  wanting.  The  sentiment  is  first  in  order.  The  science  must  be  an 
outgrowth,  a  consequential  development,  of  the  sentiment.  The  precepts  of  Christ- 
ian Morality  deal  properly  with  that  which  is  the  soul  of  the  other,  leaving  to 
intellectual  investigation  the  discovery  of  its  scientific  complement. 

147.  It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  that  the  Value  Principle  is  the  commer- 
^   cial  embodiment  of  the  essential  element  of  conquest  and  war.  —  war  transferred 

from  the  battle-field  to  the  counter,  —  none  the  less  opposed,  however,  to  the  spirit 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,  101 

of  Christian  Morality  or  the  sentiment  of  human  brotherhood.  In  bodily  conflict 
the  physically  strong  conquer  and  subject  the  physically  weak.  In  the  conflict  of 
trade  the  intellectually  astute  and  powerful  conquer  and  subject  those  who  are  intel- 
lectually feeble,  or  whose  intellectual  development  is  not  of  the  precise  kind  to  fit 
them  for  the  conflict  of  wits  in  the  matter  of  trade.  With  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion and  development  we  have  ceased  to  think  that  superior  physical  strength  gives 
the  right  of  conquest  and  subjugation.  We  have  graduated,  in  idea,  out  of  the 
period  of  physical  dominion.  We  remain,  however,  as  yet  in  the  period  of  intel- 
lectual conquest  or  plunder..  It  has  not  been  questioned  hitherto,  as  a  general 
proposition,  that  the  man  who  has  superior  intellectual  endowments  to  others  has  a 
right  resulting  therefrom  to  profit  thereby  at  the  cost  of  others.  In  the  extreme  ap- 
plications of  the  admission  only  is  the  conclusion  ever  denied.  In  the  whole  field  of 
what  are  denominated  the  legitimate  operations  of  trade  there  is  no  other  law 
recognized  than  the  relative  "  smartness  "  or  shrewdness  of  the  parties,  modified 
at  most  by  the  sentimental  precept  stated  above. 

148.  The  intrinsic  wrongfulness  of  the  principal  axioms  and  practice  of  existing 
commerce  will  appear  to  every  reflecting  mind  from  the  preceding  analysis.  It 
will  be  proper,  however,  before  dismissing  the  consideration  of  the  Value  Princi- 
ple, to  trace  out  a  little  more  in  detail  some  of  its  specific  results. 

The  principle  itself  being  essentially  iniquitous,  all  the  fruits  of  the  principle 
are  necessarily  pernicious. 
Among  the  consequences  which  flow  from  it  are  the  following: 

149.  I.  —  It  renders  falsehood  and  hypocrisy  a  necessary  concomitant  of  trade.        ^ 
Where  the  object  is  to  buy  cheap  and  sell  dear,  the  parties  find  their  interest  in  mu- 
tual deception.     It  is  taught,  in  theory,  that  "  honesty  is  the  best  policy,"  in  the  long 

run,  but  in  practice  the  merchant  discovers  speedily  that  he  must  starve  if  he  acts 
upon  the  precept  —  in  the  short  run.  Honesty — even  as  much  honesty  as  can  be 
arrived  at  —  is  not  the  best  policy  under  the  present  unscientific  system  of  com- 
merce, if  by  the  best  policy  is  meant  that  which  tends  to  success  in  business. 
Professional  merchants  are  sharp  to  distinguish  their  true  policy  for  that  end,  and 
they  do  not  find  it  in  a  full  exposition  of  the  truth.  Intelligent  merchants  know 
the  fact  well,  and  conscientious  merchants  deplore  it;  but  they  see  no  remedy. 
The  theory  of  trade  taught  to  innocent  youths  in  the  retired  family,  or  the  Sunday  t 
school,  would  ruin  any  clerk,  if  adhered  to  behind  the  counter,  in  a  fortnight. 
Hence  it  is  uniformly  abandoned,  and  a  new  system  of  morality  acquired  the 
moment  a  practical  application  is  to  be  made  of  the  instruction.  A  frank  disclo- 
sure, by  the  merchant,  of  all  the  secret  advantages  in  his  possession  would  destroy 
his  reputation  for  sagacity  as  effectually  as  it  would  that  of  the  gambler  among 
his  associates.  Both  commerce  and  gambling,  as  professions,  are  systems  of  '^ 
strategy.  It  is  the  business  of  both  parties  to  a  trade  to  overreach  each  other,  — 
a  fact  which  finds  its  unblushing  announcement  in  the  maxim  of  the  Common 
Law,  Caveat  emptor  (let  the  purchaser  take  care). 


102  The  Science  of  Society. 

150.  11.  —  It  makes  the  rich  richer,  and  the  poor  poorer.  Trade  being,  under  this 
/^  system,  the  intellectual  correspondence  to  the  occupation  of  the  cut-throat  or  con- 
queror under  the  reign  of  physical  force,  —  the  stronger  consequently  accumulating 
more  than  his  share  at  the  cost  of  the  destruction  of  the  weaker, — the  consequence 
of  the  principle  is  that  the  occupation  of  trade,  for  those  who  possess  intellectual 
superiority,  with  other  favorable  conditions,  enables  them  to  accumulate  more  than 
their  share  of  wealth,  while  it  reduces  those  whose  intellectual  development — of 
the  precise  kind  requisite  for  this  species  of  contest  —  and  whose  material  condi- 
tions are  less  favorable,  to  wretchedness  and  poverty. 

151.  III. — It  creates  trade  for  trade's  sake,  and  augments  the  number  of  non-pro- 
ducers, whose  support  is  chargeable  upon  Labor.  As  trade,  under  the  operation  of 
this  principle,  offers  the  temptation  of  illicit  gains  and  rapid  wealth  at  the  expense 
of  others,  it  creates  trade  where  there  is  no  necessity  for  trade,  —  not  as  a  benefi- 
cent interchange  of  commodities  between  producers  and  consumers,  but  as  a  means 
of  speculation.  Hence  thousands  are  withdrawn  from  actual  production  and  thrust 
unnecessarily  into  the  business  of  exchanging,  mutually  devom-ing  each  other  by 
competition,  and  drawing  their  subsistence  and  their  wealth  from  the  producing 
classes,  without  rendering  any  equivalent  service.  Hence  the  interminable  range 
of  intermediates  between  the  producer  and  consumer,  the  total  defeat  of  organiza- 
tion and  economy  in  the  distribution  of  products,  and  the  intolerable  burden  of 
the  unproductive  classes  upon  labor,  together  with  a  host  of  the  frightful  results 
of  pauperism  and  crime. 

152.  IV.  —  It  degrades  the  dignity  of  Labor.  Inasmuch  as  trade,  under  the  ope- 
ration of  this  principle,  is  more  profitable,  or  at  any  rate  is  liable  to  be,  promises 
to  be,  and  in  a  portion  of  cases  is  more  profitable  than  productive  labor,  it  follows 
that  the  road  to  wealth  and  social  distinction  lies  in  that  direction.     Hence  "  Com- 

•'  merce  is  King."  Hence,  again,  productive  labor  is  depreciated  and  contemned. 
It  holds  the  same  relation  to  commerce  in  this  age  —  under  the  reign  of  intellectual 
superiority  —  that  commerce  itself  held  a  few  generations  since  —  under  the  reign 
of  physical  force  —  to  military  achievement,  personal  or  hereditary.  Thus  the 
degradation  of  labor,  and  all  the  innumerable  evils  which  follow  in  its  train,  in 
our  existing  civilization,  find  their  efficient  cause  in  this  same  false  principle  of 
exchanging  products.  The  next  stage  of  progress  will  be  the  inauguration  of 
Equity,  —  equality  in  the  results  of  every  species  of  industry  according  to  burdens 
and  the  consequent  accession  of  labor  to  the  highest  rank  of  human  estimation. 
Commerce  will  then  sink  to  a  mere  brokerage,  paid,  like  any  other  species  of 
labor,  according  to  its  repugnance,  as  the  army  is  now. sinking  to  a  mere  police 
force.  It  will  be  reduced  to  the  simplest  and  most  direct  methods  of  exchange, 
and  made  to  be  the  merest  servant  of  production,  which  will  come,  in  its  turn,  to 
be  regarded  as  conferring  the  only  true  patents  of  nobility. 

153.  V. — It  prevents  the  possibility  of  a  scientific  Adjustment  of  Supply  to  Demand. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,  103 

It  has  been  already  shown  that  speculation  is  the  cause  why  there  has  never  been, 
and  cannot  now  be,  any  scientific  Adaptation  of  Supply  to  Demand.  (35,  36.)  It 
has  also  been  partially  shown,  at  various  points,  that  speculation,  or  trading  in 
chances  and  fluctuations  in  the  market,  has  its  I'oot  in  the  Value  Principle,  and 
that  the  Cost  Principle  extinguishes  speculation.  It  will  be  proper,  however,  in 
this  connection  to  define  exactly  the  limits  of  speculation,  and  to  point  out  more 
specifically  how  the  Value  Principle  creates  it,  and  how  the  Cost  Principle  ex- 
tinguishes it. 

151.  By  speculation  is  meant,  in  the  ordinary  language  of  trade,  risky  and  un- 
usual enterprises  entered  upon  for  the  sake  of  more  than  ordinary  profits,  and  in 
that  sense  there  is  attached  to  it,  among  merchants,  a  slight  shade  of  imputation 
of  dishonesty  or  disreputable  conduct.  As  we  are  seeking  now,  however,  to  employ 
language  in  an  exact  and  scientific  way,  we  must  find  a  more  precise  definition  of 
the  term.  The  line  between  ordinary  and  more  than  ordinary  profits  is  too  vague 
for  a  scientific  treatise.  At  one  extremity  of  the  long  succession  of  chance-dealing 
and  advantage-taking  transactions  stands  gambling,  which  is  denounced  by  the 
common  verdict  of  mankind  as  merely  a  more  specious  form  of  robbery.  It  holds 
the  same  relation  to  robbery  itself  that  duelling  holds  to  murder.  Where  is  the 
other  end  of  this  succession?  At  what  point  does  a  man  begin  to  take  an  undue 
advantage  of  his  fellow-man  in  a  commercial  transaction?  It  clearly  appears,  from 
all  that  has  been  shown,  that  he  does  so  from  the  moment  that  he  receives  from 
him  more  than  an  exact  equivalent  of  cost.  But  it  is  the  constant  endeavor  of 
every  trader,  upon  any  other  than  the  Cost  Principle,  to  do  that.  The  business  of 
the  merchant  is  profit-making.  Profit  signifies,  etymologically,  something  made 
over  and  above,  —  that  is,  something  beyond  an  equivalent,  or,  in  its  simplest  ex- 
pression, something  for  nothing. 

155.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  there  is  no  difference  between  profit-making  in  its 
mildest  form,  speculation  in  its  opprobrious  sense  as  the  middle  term,  and  gam- 
bling as  the  ultimate,  except  in  degree.  There  is  simply  the  bad  gradation  of  rank 
which  there  is  between  the  slaveholder,  the  driver  on  the  slave  plantation,  and  the 
slavedealer,  or  between  the  man  of  pleasure,  the  harlot,  and  the  pimp. 

156.  The  philanthropy  of  the  age  is  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  the  overthrow 
of  the  institution  of  slavery.  But  slavery  has  no  scientific  definition.  It  is  thought 
to  consist  in  the  feature  of  chattelism,  but  an  ingenious  lawyer  would  run  his  pen 
through  every  statute  upon  slavery  in  existence,  and  expunge  that  fiction  of  the 
law,  and  yet  leave  slavery,  for  all  practical  purposes,  precisely  what  it  is  now.  It 
needs  only  to  appropriate  the  services  of  the  man  by  operation  of  law,  instead  of 
the  man  himself.  The  only  distinction,  then,  left  between  his  condition  and  that 
of  the  laborer  who  is  robbed  by  the  operation  of  a  false  commercial  principle 
would  be  in  the  fact  of  the  oppression  being  more  tangible  and  undisguisedly  .' 
degrading  to  his  manhood. 


104  The  Science  of  Society. 

157.  If,  in  any  transaction,  I  get  from  you  some  portion  of  your  earnings  with- 
out an  equivalent,  I  begin  to  make  you  my  slave,  —  to  confiscate  you  to  my  uses ;  if  I 
get  a  larger  portion  of  youi*  services  without  an  equivalent,  I  make  you  still  further 
my  slave;  and,  finally,  if  I  obtain  the  whole  of  your  services  without  an  equiva- 
lent,— except  the  means  of  keeping  you  in  working  condition  for  my  own  sake, — 
I  make  you  completely  my  slave.  Slavery  is  merely  one  development  of  a  general 
system  of  human  oppression,  for  which  we  have  no  comprehensive  term  in  English, 
but  which  the  French  Socialists  denominate  exploitation,  —  the  abstraction,  directly 
or  indirectly,  from  the  working  classes  of  the  fruits  of  their  labor.  In  the  case  of 
the  slave  the  instrument  of  that  abstraction  is  force  and  legal  enactments.  In  the 
case  of  the  laborer,  generally,  it  is  speculation  in  the  large  sense,  or  projit-making. 
The  slaveholder  will  be  found,  therefore,  upon  a  scientific  analysis,  to  hold  the 
same  relation  to  the  trader  which  the  freebooter  holds  to  the  blackleg.  It  is  a 
question  of  taste  which  to  admire  most,  the  dare-devil  boldness  of  the  one,  or  the 
oily  and  intriguing  propensities  and  performances  of  the  other. 

158.  But,  you  exclaim,  why  should  I  sell  at  cost?  How  am  I  to  live  as  a  mer- 
chant without  profits?  Never  you  mind.  That  is  not  the  question  now  up.  Per- 
haps the  world  has  no  particular  use  for  you  as  a  merchant.  We  will  take  care  of 
all  that  by  and  by.  Just  now  aU  that  we  are  doing  is  to  settle  the  nature  of  cer- 
tain principles.  We  shall  want  some  merchants  after  all,  and  will  pay  them  just 
what  they  are  equitably  entitled  to.  Do  you  want  more?  I  shall  now  be  under- 
stood when  I  say  that  the  Cost  Principle  is  merely  the  mutual  abandonment,  on  all 
hands,  of  every  species  of  profit-makixg,  —  each  contenting  himself  with  simple 
EQUIVALEXTS  OF  COST  in  every  exchange.  It  will  be  perceived,  too,  that  the  term 
speculation  is  used  as  synonymous  mth  profit-making,  when  it  is  affirmed  that  that 
has  hitherto  defeated  the  Adaptation  of  Supply  to  Demand.  With  the  cessation 
of  profit-making  there  is  no  longer  any  temptation  to  conceal  from  each  other  any 
species  of  knowledge  bearing  upon  that  subject.  At  that  point  gazetteers,  cata- 
logues, and  statistical  publications  of  all  sorts  spring  into  existence,  giving  exact 
information  upon  every  point  connected  with  the  demand  and  supply  of  labor  and 
commodities  and  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth. 

159.  VI.  —  The  Value  Principle  renders  Competition  destructive  and  desperate.  The 
general  subject  of  Competition  will  be  more  fully  considered  under  another  head. 
(202.)  The  consequence  here  stated  follows  in  part  as  a  necessary  result  of  the 
preceding  one,  the  want  of  Adaptation  of  Supply  to  Demand,  and  in  part  from  the 
robbery  of  labor  by  the  system  now  in  operation.  In  the  existi«g  state  of  things 
there  is  an  apparent  surplus  of  both  commodities  and  laborers,  and  the  result  is 
that  men  and  women  who  are  able  to  work,  and  willing  to  work,  are  not  able  to 
find  employment.  Hence,  to  be  thrown  out  of  occupation  by  competition  is  a 
frightful  calamity,  always  implying  distress,  frequently  destitution  and  wretched- 
ness, and  sometimes  absolute  starvation,  while  the  fear  of  such  a  catastrophe  is  a 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  105 

demon  which  haunts  continually  the  imagination  of  the  workingman,  afflicting 
him  with  a  misery  hardly  less  real  than  the  occurrence  of  the  calamity  itself.  It  is 
the  tendency  and  direct  effect  of  competition  to  throw  out  the  inferior  workman 
from  every  occupation,  and  to  supply  his  place  by  the  superior  workman  in  that 
particular  branch  of  industry.  This  tendency,  direful  as  its  consequences  are  in 
the  existing  state  of  things,  is  nevertheless  a  right  tendency,  and  society  ought  to 
be  organized  upon  such  principles  that  it  should  have  full  play  —  to  an  extent  far 
beyond  what  it  now  has  —  with  no  other  than  beneficent  results  to  all.  It  is  per- 
fectly right  that  the  inferior  workman  should  be  thrown  out  of  any  employment 
to  make  room  for  the  superior  workman  in  that  employment.  To  retain  the  infe- 
rior workman  in  any  occupation,  while  there  is  in  the  whole  world  a  superior 
workman  for  that  occupation,  who  can  do  the  same  work  at  less  cost,  and  therefore 
upon  the  Cost  Principle  at  a  less  price,  is  bad  economy  of  means,  —  as  bad  as  it  is 
to  employ  an  inferior  machine  or  process  after  a  superior  machine  or  process  has 
been  discovered, — and  any  system  or  set  of  relations  which  works  out  bad  results 
from  such  appropriate  substitution  of  the  superior  for  the  inferior  instrument 
must  be  itself  essentially  bad. 

IGO.  It  is  now  calamitous  for  any  person  to  be  thrown  out  of  his  particular  oc- 
cupation for  several  reasons,  all  of  which  either  relate  directly  to  the  operations  of 
the  Value  Principle,  or  indirectly  to  it,  through  the  general  want  of  the  Adaptation 
of  Supply  to  Demand,  which  is  occasioned  by  it. 

161.  The  principal  of  these  are:  1.  Because  when  one  avenue  to  industry  is 
closed  another  is  not  opened,  as  would  be  the  case  if  supply  and  demand  were  accu- 
rately adjusted;  and  hence  apparently  there  is  not  enough  labor  for  all.  In  the 
existing  order,  or  rather  disorder  of  commerce,  there  is  what  is  called  over-produc- 
tion. More  of  a  given  article  seems  to  be  produced  than  is  wanted,  which  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  it  cannot  be  disposed  of  in  the  market  at  any  price.  With  all  the 
irregularities  of  existing  commerce  this  seldom  happens.  The  evil  does  not  gene- 
rally go  beyond  the  reduction  of  price.  When  it  does,  it  is  because  there  is  now 
no  provisory  means  of  adjusting  supply  and  demand.  The  producer  cannot  know 
beforehand,  for  example,  precisely  how  many  persons  are  engaged  in  rearing  the 
particular  kind  of  fruit  which  he  cultivates,  what  number  of  trees  they  have,  the 
amount  of  fruit  annually  consumed  in  the  city  where  they  find  their  market,  etc. 
But  although  the  workings  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  are  not  pointed  out 
to  him  beforehand,  the  law  is  sure  to  work,  nevertheless.  It  is  inflexible  as  the 
law  of  the  IMedes  and  Persians.  It  will  punish  the  error,  although  it  did  not  pre- 
vent it.  The  over-supply  may  happen  one  year,  but  it  will  not  happen  the  second 
and  the  third  years.  The  persons  employed  in  that  kind  of  production  will  find 
their  way  into  other  pursuits.  In  a  country  which  should  prohibit  all  change  of 
pursuits,  that  remedy  would  not  exist.  The  evil  would  have  to  go  on,  or  be  re- 
medied by  the  starvation  of  the  producer  of  the  given  article.     In  America,  where 


106  The  Science  of  Society. 

the  avenues  to  every  pursuit  are  more  opeu  than  elsewhere,  the  remedy  is  more 
speedy  than  elsewhere.  Under  the  reign  of  Equity,  the  evil  would  not  exist,  he- 
cause  there  would  he  a  provisory  adjustment  of  the  supply  to  the  demand,  and,  if  it  did 
occur,  the  remedy  would  be  immediate,  because  all  avenues  to  all  pursuits  would 
be  open  to  all  by  means  of  that  adjustment,  and  the  general  preparedness  of  all  to 
change  rapidly  their  pursuits,  together  with  the  general  prevalence  of  cooperation. 
(163.) 

Still  there  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  apart  from  the  workings  of  any  parti- 
cular system,  a  limit  to  the  demand  for  every  article.  "When  that  demand  is  sup- 
plied, must  not  the  demand  for  labor  cease?  Certainly,  for  the  production  of 
more  of  that  particular  article.  "We  have  seen,  however,  that  that  labor  will  go 
into  different  avenues,  —  that  is,  into  the  production  of  other  articles.  If  the  ques- 
tion is,  whether  all  the  wants  of  all  mankind  will  not  be  so  completely  supplied 
that  there  will  be  no  occasion  for  further  labor,  the  answer  is  three-fold.  First,  so 
soon  as  the  labor  ceased,  consumption  would  reproduce  the  wants  and  the  demand. 
Secondly,  if  this  were  partially  so,  it  would  only  give  additional  leisure  for  mental 
improvement  and  other  means  of  enjoyment  to  all  mankind  by  emancipating  them 
so  far  from  the  necessity  of  labor.  Thirdly,  the  wants  of  human  beings  are  infi- 
nite. As  the  lower  wants  are  supplied  higher  wants  are  developed.  So  soon  as 
men  and  women  have  ordinary  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  they  demand  luxuries, 
V  and  these  of  a  higher  and  still  higher  class.  The  gratification  of  every  taste  creates 
a  new  demand.  It  is  impossible,  therefore,  that  the  demand  for  human  labor,  and 
for  aH  the  labor  which  can  be  given,  should  ever  cease.  Hence  there  is  no  such 
thing  possible  as  a  real  over-stocking  of  the  world  with  labor,  or  the  products  of 
labor.  There  is  no  such  thing  possible  as  a  real  dearth  of  labor  to  be  performed. 
"With  all  the  avenues  continually  open,  there  will  then  always  be  a  demand  for  all 
the  labor  that  any  body  is  ready  to  perform,  even  down  to  the  inferior  and  lowest 
grades  of  skill.  It  will  be  still  more  clearly  shown,  in  treating  of  the  remaining 
results  of  the  Cost  Principle,  how,  under  the  true  system,  the  avenues  to  every  pur- 
suit will  be  open  to  every  individual  at  all  times  without  artificial  obstacles,  and 
how  there  will  be  at  all  times  labor  enough  for  all.  (213.) 

162.  2.  Because,  when  avenues  are  open  to  new  pursuits,  men  and  women  are  not 
now  prepared  to  avail  themselves  of  them.  This  unpreparedness  results  from  their 
wi-etchedly  cramped  aud  iusufiicient  industrial  education.  This  results  again  from 
speculation.  Men  now  strive,  on  all  hands,  to  monopolize  those  occupations  which 
are  most  profitable,  and  hence  to  exclude  others  from  acquiring  the  necessary  know- 
ledge to  enable  them  to  enter  them.  Hence  there  results  from  the  value  or  profit- 
making  principle  a  general  embargo  on  knowledge,  and  the  reduction  of  all  classes 
to  narrowness  of  information  and  general  ignorance.  Information  in  any  trade  or 
pursuit  is  made  a  means  of  speculation.  Hence  the  barbarous  system  of  seven- 
y^       years'  apprenticeships,  and  other   similar   absurdities.     Hence,   when   men   and 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Py'ice.  107 

women  are  thrown  out  of  any  particular  occupation  to  which  they  have  been  bred 
and  moulded,  they  are  fitted  for  nothing  but  pauperism.  Under  the  operation  of  T~ 
the  Cost  Principle  all  this  will  be  reversed.  Every  member  of  the  community  will 
be  a  MAN  or  a  woman,  competent  to  do  various  things, — not  a  mere  appendage  to  a 
trade,  carrying  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave»the  badge  of  servitude  in  the  degrading 
appellation  of  tailor,  weaver,  shoemaker,  joiner,  and  the  like.  Now,  shops  are 
fenced  in,  locked  and  bolted,  to  keep  out  intruders  and  shut  up  the  information 
contained  in  them.  Trades  are  hedged  in  by  the  absurd  and  barbarous  sj'stem 
based  on  Yalue.  Men  who  have  knowledge  of  any  kind  hoard  it.  They  look,  un- 
naturally, upon  those  who  would  learn  of  them  as  if  they  were  enemies.  As  the 
result,  the  avenues  to  different  occupations  are  everywhere  obstructed  by  artificial 
obstacles.  Then  information  of  all  sorts  will  be  freely  given  to  all.  Suggestions 
will  be  made  on  all  hands,  aiding  every  one  to  enter  that  career  in  which  he  can 
most  benefit,  not  himself  only,  but  the  whole  public.  In  a  word,  all  the  avenues 
to  every  occupation  will  be  thrown  completely  open  to  all,  and  all  knowledge  be 
freely  furnished  to  all  at  the  mere  cost  of  the  labor  of  communicating  it,  measured, 
like  any  labor,  by  its  repugnance  only. 

163.  VIT. —  The  Value  Principle  renders^  the  invention  of  new  machinery  a  wide- 
spread calamity,  instead  of  a  universal  blessing.  The  hostility  so  generally  felt  by 
laboring  men  to  new  inventions  is  not  without  reason.  It  is  certainly  true  that 
machinery  is  a  great  benefit  to  mankind  at  large,  and  that  in  the  aggregate  and  in 
the  long  run  it  improves  the  condition  even  of  laboring  men  as  a  class.  But  it  is 
equally  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  every  invention  of  a  labor-saving  process  is, 
under  the  present  arrangements  of  society,  an  immediate  individual  misfortune, 
and  frequently  nothing  less  than  ruin  and  starvation  to  a  large  number  of  indivi- 
duals of  that  class.  This  result  comes  from  the  causes  stated  above,  which  render 
it  impossible  for  the  laborer  to  pass  rapidly  and  harmoniously  from  one  occupation 
to  another,  and  from  the  monopoly  of  the  immediate  benefits  of  the  saving  secured 
by  the  machine,  by  capital,  and  all  these  again  from  profit-making,  or  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Value  Principle.  It  is  the  same  with  competition  and  machinery. 
Competition,  even  in  the  present  order  of  things,  is  productive  of  far  more  good 
than  evil,  looking  to  the  aggregate  and  the  long  run,  while  it  is  ruinous  and  de- 
structive immediately  and  individually.  Under  the  new  order  both  will  become 
purely  harmonic  and  beneficent.  (208,  243.) 

164.  This  catalogue  of  the  deleterious  results  of  the  false  principle  of  trade 
might  and  .«ihould  be  extended,  and  the  details  expanded  beyond  what  the  limits 
of  this  work  will  allow.  The  reader  will  add,  for  himself,  the  monopolizing  of  na- 
tural wealth,  the  perversion  of  skill  to  the  shamming  or  adulteration  of  every 
species  of  commodity,  the  waste  of  time  and  exertion  in  detecting  and  defeating 
frauds  and  cheats,  the  general  want  of  economy  in  the  production  of  wealth,  the 
cost  of  convicting  and  punishing  criminals,  constructing  poor-houses  and  prisons, 
etc.,  tttc,  etc.,  ad  infinitum. 


108  The,  Science  of  Society. 

It  must  suffice  here  to  affirm  that  out  of  these  several  consequences  of  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Value  Principle  results  that  complicated  system  of  injustice,  discord, 
distrust,  and  repulsion  which  have  usurped  the  place  of  the  spirit  of  peace,  order, 
and  social  harmony,  and  which  characterizes,  in  the  most  eminent  degree,  in  the 
midst  of  their  success,  the  most  commepcial  and  prosperous  nations.  The  compa- 
rison of  the  present  is  not  to  be  instituted  however,  mainly,  with  any  condition  of 
society  prior  to  the  commercial  age,  since  different  manifestations  of  the  want  of 
equity  have  characterized  them  also.  The  exhibition  of  relations  of  truth  in 
human  intercourse  could  not  precede  the  discovery  of  the  principles  according  to 
which  such  relations  must  be  adjusted. 

165.  The  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle  reverses  every  one  of  the  consequences 
which  I  have  pointed  out  or  intimated  as  the  legitimate  fruits  of  the  principle 
which  now  governs  the  property  relations  of  mankind.  In  the  next  chapter  we 
shall  return  to  the  consideration  of  the  results  of  the  true  principle. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  109 


CHAPTER  V. 

MEXIAL  LABOR  RAISED  IN  PRICK. 

166.  The  next  result  of  the  Cost  Principle  is  one  which  is  not  less  diverse  froua 
the  operations  of  existing  commerce  or  society,  although  its  essential  justice  may 

to  many  minds  be  more  obvious,  —  namely,  that  according  to  it  the  more  ordinary  — |- 
and  menial  kinds  of  labor  will  be  usually  paid  best.  This  result  follows  from  the  fact  — • 
that  all  pursuits  are  paid  according  to  their  repugnance,  and  there  is  less  in  the 
inferior  grades  of  labor  to  commend  them  to  the  taste  and  render  them  attractive. 
This  result  is  qualified  by  the  statement  that  such  labor  is  usually  paid  best,  be- 
cause it  is  not  always  so.  Severe  mental  labor  may  be  more  toilsome,  painful,  and 
repugnant  than  any  corporeal  labor  whatever,  and  consequently  cost  more.  This 
point  will  be  more  fully  stated  hereafter,  in  referring  to  the  tax  of  different  occu- 
pations upon  different  faculties.  Besides,  very  little  judgment  can  be  formed  from 
the  present  ideas  upon  the  subject  as  to  what  kinds  of  labor  will  be  regarded,  un- 
der the  operation  of  true  principles,  as  inferior  to,  or  more  menial  than  others. 

167.  It  is  certain  that  every  species  of  industry  will  be  relatively  very  much 
elevated  by  the  mere  fact  of  being  appropriately  rewarded,  and  still  more  so  by  the 
consequent  prevalence  of  more  rational  notions  in  relation  to  the  dignity  of  labor. 
The  principle  here  asserted  merely  amounts  to  this,  —  that  whatever  kinds  of  la- 
bor actually  have  in  them  the  greatest  amoimt  of  drudgery,  from  any  cause,  even 
from  the  whims  and  prejudices  of  society  against  them,  and  which  are  therefore 
most  repugnant,  will  be  best  paid.  The  contrary  is  true  now.  Such  labors  are 
the  most  scantily  paid.  Consequently  the  more  work  or  burden  there  is  in  any 
occupation,  the  less  pay.  There  is  such  an  obvious  want  of  equity  in  this  that  the 
mere  statement  of  the  fact  condemns  it.  Yet  the  common  associations  and  habits 
of  thought  are  so  completely  overturned  by  the  idea  of  boot-blacking,  street-clean- 
ing, washing,  scrubbing,  etc.,  being  paid  higher  prices  than  painting,  sculpture, 
forensic  oratory,  and  the  largest  commercial  transactions,  as  they  might,  and  pro- 
bably would  be,  under  the  application  of  repugnance  or  cost  as  the  measure  of 
price,  that  the  mind  hesitates  to  admit  the  conclusion  that  such  is  the  dictate  of 
simple  Equity.  The  principle  of  Equity  is,  nevertheless,  clear  and  self-evident; 
and  while  the  principle  is  admitted,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable. 

168.  The  first  resort  of  an  illogical  and  determined  opposition  to  this  conclusion 
is  to  fly  off  from  the  principle  to  the  consequences  of  the  conclusion  upon  the  con- 
dition and  interests  of  society.     These,  as  they  address  themselves  to  the  mind  of 


110  The  Science  of  Society. 

a  superficial  observer,  are  repugnant,  aud  even  disastrous  to  the  general  good.  A 
closer  inspection,  however,  and  especially  a  more  comprehensive  conception  of  all 
the  changed  conditions  of  society  which  will  grow  out  of  the  operation  of  the  Cost 
Principle,  will  reverse  that  opinion,  and  furnish  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  a 
true  principle  may  always  be  trusted  to  work  out  true  and  harmonious  results. 
The  objections  deduced  from  these  supposed  consequences  require,  however,  to  be 
noticed. 

169.  These  objections  are  chiefly  the  following  :  It  is  objected,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  effect  of  this  system  of  remuneration  would  be  to  banish  refinement,  by 
placing  those  persons  having  less  elevated  tastes  in  the  possession  of  the  gi'eater 
wealth,  and  those  having  more  elevated  tastes  in  the  possession  of  less. 

This  is  substantially  the  same  objection  which  is  urged  by  aristocracies  gene- 
rally against  educating  and  improving  the  condition  of  the  common  people.  It 
makes  the  assumption  that  the  whole  people  are  not  susceptible  of  refinement, 
which  is  assuming  too  much.  The  objection  draws  its  force  chiefly  from  the  exist- 
ing state  of  society,  the  prevailing  great  inequalities  in  the  distribution  of  wealth, 
and  the  general  degradation  of  the  masses  consequent  thereon.  The  result  of  the 
operation  of  the  Cost  Principle,  or  of  the  reign  of  Equity,  will  be  an  immense  aug- 
mentation of  the  aggregate  of  wealth,  and  a  far  greater  approach  to  equality  in  its 
distribution.  It  will  be,  in  fact,  the  abolition  of  poverty,  aud  the  installation  of 
general  abundance  and  security  of  condition.  The  particular  modes  in  which 
these  results  will  be  attained  will  be  referred  to  under  other  heads. 

170.  Consequently,  in  the  state  of  society  growing  legitimately  out  of  the  ope- 
ration of  Equity,  refinement,  so  far  as  that  depends  on  the  possession  of  wealth, 
will  be,  so  to  speak,  the  inheritance  of  all,  and  any  objection,  to  be  valid,  should 
be  taken  within  the  circle  of  the  new  principles, — not  drawn  from  a  system  of  so- 
ciety quite  alien  to  them. 

171.  Various  calculations,  and  some  actual  experiments,  go  to  establish  the  po- 
sition that,  if  the  laborer  enjoyed  the  full  results  of  his  own  labor  in  immediate 

>  products  or  equivalents  of  cost,  two  hours  of  labor  a  day  would  be  ample  to  supply 
the  ordinary  wants  of  the  uidividual,  —  that  is,  to  bring  his  condition  up  to  the 
average  standard  of  comfort, — even  without  the  benefits  of  labor-saving  machinery 
or  the  economies  of  the  large  scale.  "With  those  extraordinary  benefits  the  time 
necessary  for  such  a  result  will  be  very  much  reduced ;  if  it  would  not  seem  extra- 
>"  vagant,  I  should  say  to  one  half  hour's  labor  a  day, — such  being  the  nearest  result 
at  which  calculation  can  aiTive  fi*om  such  data  as  can  now  be  obtained.  The  re- 
maining time  of  the  Individual  would  then  be  at  his  disposition  for  providing  a 
higher  grade  of  luxury,  for  mental  improvement  and  amusement,  and  for  laying 
up  accumulations  of  wealth  as  a  provision  for  sickness,  old  age,  the  indulgence  of 
benevolence,  taste,  etc.  Of  course  all  calculations  of  this  sort  must  be  merely  ap- 
proximative.    The  terms  used  are  too  indefinite  to  render  them  more  than  that. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  Ill 

even  if  the  degree  of  saving,  by  a  true  arrangement  of  the  production  and  distri- 
bution of  wealth,  could  be  rendered  definite,  comfort,  luxury,  etc.,  being  always, 
in  a  great  measure,  relative  to  the  individual.  The  estimate  here  stated,  however, 
is  the  result  of  extensive  investigations,  made  by  different  individuals,  and  in  dif- 
ferent countries,  and  of  considerable  actual  experiment,  the  particulars  of  which 
will  be  stated  elsewhere,  and,  as  an  approximation,  it  is  believed  that  it  is  not  very 
far  from  correct.  The  reason  why  this  two  hours  of  labor  is  now  augmented  to 
.ten,  twelve,  fomteen,  and  even  sixteen  hours  for  those  who  labor,  and  even  then 
without  resulting  in  ordinary  comfort,  is  of  the  same  kind  as  those  which  have 
already  been  stated  why  others  cannot  procure  labor  at  all,  and  such  as  have  been 
shown  to  be  the  legitimate  results  of  the  Value  Principle.  It  is,  in  one  word,  be- 
cause the  state  of  society  begotten  of  that  principle  is,  as  has  been  affirmed,  a  state 
of  latent  but  universal  war,  and  because  all  war  is  an  exhausting  drain  upon  peace- 
ful industry.  The  men  and  women  who  work  have  now  to  support,  ordinarily, 
not  one  individual  each,  but  many,  including  the  wealthy  and  speculating  classes, 
the  paupers,  those  who  are  thrown  temporarily  out  of  labor,  the  armies  and  navies, 
the  officials,  and,  worse  than  all,  those  whose  labor  is  now  misapplied  and  wasted 
through  the  general  antagonism  and  conflict  of  interests.  Let  any  thinking  person 
take  passage,  for  example,  upou  a  steamboat,  and  find  himself  plied  by  a  dozen  or 
twenty  newsboys,  each  urging  him  to  the  purchase  of  the  same  newspapers;  let 
him  reflect  that  all  the  passengers  present  might  have  been  as  well  served  by  one 
boy,  and  that  this  waste  of  human  exertion  is  merely  one  sample  out  of  thousands 
of  a  general  or  pervading  system  of  the  bestowment  of  labor  to  no  useful  purpose. 
172.  Again,  the  possession  of  wealth  is  only  one  means  of  refinement,  or  rather 
of  the  true  development  of  the  human  being.  Labor  in  itself  is  just  as  essential  to 
that  development  as  wealth.  Labor  without  wealth,  as  its  legitimate  end  and  con- 
sequence, terminates  in  coarseness,  vulgarity,  and  degradation.  Wealth  without 
labor,  as  the  legitimate  necessity  and  condition  of  its  attainment,  ends,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  luxuriousness  and  effeminacy.  The  first  is  the  condition  of  the 
ever-toiling  and  poverty-stricken  masses  in  our  actual  civilization ;  the  last  is  the 
hardly  more  fortunate  condition  of  the  rich.  Labor  is  first  degraded  by  being  de- 
prived of  its  reward,  and,  being  degraded,  the  wealthy,  who  are  enabled  by  their 
riches  to  avoid  it,  are  repelled,  even  when  their  tastes  would  incline  them  to  its  per- 
formance. The  rich  suffer,  therefore,  from  ennui,  gout,  and  dyspepsia,  while  the 
poor  suffer  from  fatigue,  deformity,  and  starvation.  The  refinement  toward  which 
wealth  conduces  in  existing  society  is  not,  then,  genuine  development.  The  dandy 
is  no  more  refined,  in  any  commendable  sense  of  the  term,  than  the  boor.  Wealth 
may  coexist  with  inbred  and  excessive  vulgarity.  The  fact  is  patent  to  all,  but 
the  proof  of  it  could  nowhere  be  more  obvious  than  in  the  very  objection  I  am  an- 
swering. The  absence  of  true  refinement  and  gentility  is  in  no  manner  so  cou)- 
pletely  demonstrated  as  by  selfish  and  wanton  encroachments  upon  the  rights  of 


•c. 


112  The  Science  of  Society. 

others,  and  no  encroachment  can  be  conceived  more  selfish  and  wanton  than  that 
of  demanding  that  others  shall  work  without  compensation  to  maintain  our 
gentility. 

173.  Refinement  sits  most  gracefully  upon  those  who  have  the  most  thorough 
physical  development  and  training.  The  highest  exhibit  of  the  real  gentleman 
can  no  more  be  produced  without  labor  than  that  of  the  scholar  without  study. 
There  is  no  more  a  royal  road  to  true  refinement  than  there  is  to  mathematics. 
The  experiment  has  been  tried  in  either  case  a  thousand  times,  of  jumping  the 
primary  and  intermediate  steps,  and  the  product  has  been  in  one  event  the  fop, 
and  in  the  other  the  pedant. 

Refinement  is,  so  to  speak,  a  luxury  to  be  indulged  in  after  the  necessaries  of 
life  are  provided.  Those  necessaries  consist  of  stamina  of  body  and  mind,  which 
are  only  wrought  out  of  mental  and  corporeal  exercise.  Mere  refijiemeut  sought 
from  the  beginning,  with  no  admixture  of  hardship,  emasculates  the  man,  and 
ends  disastrously  for  the  individual  and  the  race.  It  is  indispensable,  therefore, 
to  the  true  education  and  integral  development  of  both  the  individual  and  the  race 
that  every  person  shall  take  upon  himself  or  herself  a  due  proportion  of  the  com- 
mon burden  of  mankind.  If  it  were  possible  for  any  one  individual  to  labor,  for 
his  whole  life,  at  pursuits  which  were  purely  attractive  and  delightful,  it  is  ques- 
tionable whether  even  that  would  not  mollify  his  character  to  the  point  of  effemi- 
nacy,—  whether  absolute  difficulties  and  repugnances  to  be  overcome  are  not 
essential  to  a  right  education  of  a  human  being  in  every  condition  of  his  existence. 
The  Cost  Principle  forces  a  compliance  with  what  philosophy  thus  demonstrates 
to  be  the  unavoidable  condition  of  human  development  and  genuine  refinement. 
It  removes  the  possibility  of  one  person's  living  in  indolence  of£  the  exertions  of 
others.  It  administers  labor  as  the  inevitable  prior  condition  of  indulging  in  re- 
finement, for  which  it  furnishes  the  means  and  prepares  the  way.  This  objection, 
drawn  from  the  consequences  of  the  principle  upon  the  well-being  of  society,  is 
therefore  destitute  of  validity.  The  balance  of  advantage  predominates  immensely 
in  the  opposite  scale.  The  result  which  the  principle  works  out  is  the  elevation 
and  genuine  refinement  of  the  whole  race,  instead  of  brutifying  the  vast  majority 
of  mankind  and  emasculating  the  rest. 

174.  The  second  objection  is  that  this  method  of  remuneration  depresses  the 
condition  of  genius,  and  affords  no  means  of  obtaining  a  livelihood,  and  of  making 
accumulations,  to  those  who  pursue  purely  attractive  occupations.     (99.) 

This  objection  is,  in  part,  answered  in  the  same  manner  as  the  preceding. 
Genius,  as  well  as  refinement,  has  its  basis  in  healthful  phj^sical  conditions,  sucli 
as  result  from  a  due  amount  of  labor  and  struggle  with  mental  and  corporeal 
difficulties.  Complete  relief  from  all  necessity  for  exertion  is  by  no  means  a  favor- 
able state  for  the  development  of  genius,  or  its  maintenance  in  activity.  The  poet 
who  works  three  hours  a  day  at  some  occupation  which  is  actual  work  will  be  a 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  113 

better  poet  than  the  same  man  if  he  should  devote  himself  exclusively  to  his  fa- 
vorite literary  pursuit.  With  the  knowledge  of  physiological  laws  now  prevalent, 
it  cannot  be  necessary  to  enlarge  upon  a  statement  so  well  authenticated,  both  by 
science  and  experience.  Less  than  that  amount  of  labor,  in  true  industrial  rela- 
tions, will  furnish  the  means  of  existence  and  comfort.  Hence,  under  the  operation 
of  these  principles,  genius  has  its  own  destiny  in  its  own  hands. 

175.  The  man  of  genius  who  should  devote  himself  exclusively,  except  so  far 
as  he  must  labor  to  provide  himself  the  means  of  living,  to  that  which  to  him  was 
purely  attractive  and  delightful,  would  of  course  not  accumulate,  as  the  price  of  his 
exertions,  that  kind  of  reward  which  appropriately  belongs  to  exertions  of  a  different 
kind, — namely,  to  such  as  tend  directly  to  the  production  of  wealth.  If  he  seeks 
his  own  gratification  solely  in  this  pursuit,  he  finds  his  reward  in  the  pursuit  itself. 
Probably,  however,  there  is  no  species  of  occupation  which,  when  continuously 
followed,  is  purely  delightful.  If  the  artist  disposes  of  the  products  of  his  genius 
at  all,  he  is  entitled  to  demand  a  price  for  them  according  to  the  degree  of  cost  or 
sacrifice  they  have  occasioned  him, — less  in  proportion  to  the  degree  to  which  he 
has  pursued  the  occupation  from  pure  delight.  The  correctness  of  this  principle 
is  now  tacitly  admitted  in  the  case  of  the  amateur,  who  does  not  charge  for  his 
works,  because  he  performed  them  for  his  own  gratification.  So  soon,  however,  as 
the  artist,  in  any  department  of  art,  becomes  professional,  and  exercises  his  profes- 
sion for  the  pleasure  and  gratification  of  the  public,  he  is  forced  to  subordinate 
his  own  gTatification,  more  or  less,  to  that  of  those  whom  he  attempts  to  propitiate, 
which,  with  the  temperament  usually  belonging  to  that  class  of  persons,  is  extremely 
irksome.  In  proportion  to  this  irksomeness  comes  an  augmentation  of  price.  To 
be  obliged  to  perform  at  stated  times,  to  conform  his  own  tastes  to  the  demands 
of  his  employers  or  patrons,  and  the  like,  —  all  the  sacrifice  thus  imposed  enters 
legitimately  into  the  estimate  of  price.  It  may  be,  therefore,  that  art  pursued  as 
a  profession  may  be  as  lucrative,  in  a  mere  commercial  point  of  view,  as  any  other 
pursuit. 

176.  Ordinarily,  however,  there  is  a  repugnance  with  the  genuine  artist  to 
pursuing  art  as  a  profession  at  all.  He  desires  ardently  to  pay  his  devotions  at  the 
shrine  of  his  favorite  divinity  solely  for  her  own  sake.  He  feels  that  there  is  some- 
thing like  degradation  in  intermingling  with  his  worship  any  mercenary  motive 
whatever.  For  the  gratification  of  this  refined  sentiment,  how  superior  woidd  his 
condition  be,  if,  by  expending  a  few  hours  of  his  time  at  some  productive  industry, 
which  the  arrangements  of  society  placed  always  at  his  disposal,  he  could  procure 
an  assured  subsistence,  and  that  gi-ade  of  comfort  and  elegance  to  which  his  tastes 
might  incline  him  I  There  can  be  nothing  in  the  vagrant  and  precarious  condition 
of  the  devotees  of  art,  in  our  existing  society,  to  be  viewed  as  a  model,  which  it 
would  be  dangerous  to  deviate  from. 

177.  The  objection  which  we  are  now  considering  has  been,  however,  already 


114  The  Science  of  Society. 

answered  in  a  manner  more  satisfactory,  perhaps,  to  those  whose  aspirations  for 
the  artist  are  more  luxurious,  in  the  chapter  on  Natural  Wealth,  under  which  head 
talent,  natural  skill,  or  genius  is  included.  (87.)  It  was  there  shown  that  the 
subject  treated  of  in  this  whole  work  is  merely  price,  in  its  rigid  sense  as  a  remu- 
neration for  burden  assumed,  the  only  remuneration  which  the  performer  of  any 
labor  can  with  propriety  demand;  but  it  is  not  for  that  reason  the  only  remunera- 
tion which  he  may  with  propriety  receive,  if  more  is  rendered  as  a  free  tribute  for 
pleasure  conferred,  of  which  the  party  served  must  be  the  sole  judge.  (93.) 
Hence,  as  the  business  of  the  artist  and  the  genius  is  to  confer  the  purer  and  more 
elevated  kinds  of  pleasure,  the  whole  field  is  open  to  him  to  compel  by  pure  at- 
traction as  liberal  a  tribute  as  he  may,  provided  always  no  other  force  is  employed. 
The  point  of  honor  would  concur  with  equity  in  limiting  him  in  his  demand  to  the 
mere  amount  of  burden  assumed,  as  if  he  were  the  most  menial  laborer,  —  an 
amount  which  delicacy  and  politeness  toward  those  whom  he  served  would  lead 
him  rather  to  under  than  over  estimate.  On  the  other  hand,  the  same  point  of 
honor  would  leave  to  them  the  estimate  of  the  pleasure  conferred,  while  delicacy 
and  politeness  on  theii-  part  would  in  tm-n  prompt  them  to  magnify  rather  than 
diminish  the  obligation,  and  bespeak  from  them  an  appreciative  and  indulgent 
spirit.  In  this  manner  the  intercourse  of  the  artist,  the  genius,  the  discoverer,  or 
other  supereminent  public  benefactor  with  the  public  would  be  raised  to  a  natural 
and  refined  interchange  of  courtesies,  instead  of  a  disgraceful  scramble  about  pri- 
ority of  rights,  or  the  price  of  tickets. 

178.  In  like  manner  there  is  nothing  in  the  Cost  Principle  to  prevent  the  most 
liberal  contributions,  on  aU  hands,  toward  aiding  inventors  in  carrying  on  their 
experiments  before  success  has  crowned  their  exertions,  and  the  most  liberal  tes- 
timonials of  the  public  appreciation  of  those  exertions  after  success  is  achieved. 

179.  The  third  objection  to  the  Cost  Principle,  drawn  from  its  consequences 
upon  the  interests  and  conditions  of  society,  is  that  it  does  not  provide  for  the 
performance  of  every  useful  function  in  the  community.  More  specifically  stated, 
the  objection  is  this:  Labor  is  paid  according  to  its  repugnance;  there  are  some 
kinds  of  labor  which  are  not  repugnant  at  all,  but  which,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
purely  pleasurable,  and  which  consequently  would  bear  no  price,  or  receive  no 
remuneration ;  but  the  performance  of  these  kinds  of  labor  is  necessary  to  the  well- 
being  of  society,  and,  in  order  that  they  be  performed,  those  who  perform  them 
must  be  sustained;  consequently  they  must  have  a  price  for  their  labor.  The  Cost 
Principle  denies  a  price,  therefore,  at  the  same  time  that  the  well-being  of  society 
demands  one. 

180.  This  objection  assumes  that  the  labor  in  question  wiU  not  be  performed 
unless  it  bears  a  price,  while  it  assumes  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  a  pure  pleasure 
to  perforin  it.  It  assigns  as  the  reason  why  it  will  not  be  performed,  that  the  la- 
borers performing  it  must  be  maintained  while  engaged  in  its  performance.     To 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  115 

assume  this  is  in  effect  to  assume  that  in  the  state  of  society  which  w  ill  result  from 
these  principles  people  will  not  have  leism-e  to  pursue  their  pleasure  for  pleasure's 
sake,  and  that  they  will  be  obliged  to  devote  the  whole  of  their  time  to  occupations 
going  toward  furnishing  them  the  means  of  subsistence.  This  is  again  assuming 
too  much.  Such  assumptions  are  based  upon  the  existing  state  of  things,  and  not 
upon  any  such  as  could  exist  under  the  reign  of  Universal  Equity.  The  very  end 
and  purpose  of  all  radical  social  reform  is  a  state  of  society  which  shall  relieve 
every  individual  from  subjugation  to  the  necessity  of  continuous  and  repugnant 
labor,  and  furnish  him  the  leisure  and  ability  to  pursue  his  own  pleasurable  occu- 
pations at  his  own  option.  It  is  claimed  for  the  Cost  Principle  that,  taken  in  con- 
junction with  the  doctrme  of  Individuality  and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual, 
it  works  out  a  state  of  society  in  which  that  leisure  and  ability  would  exist.  The 
real  question,  then,  is  whether  it  does  so  or  not.  If  it  does,  then  the  objection  falls. 
It  is  answered  by  the  statements  that  all  purely  pleasurable  occupations  will  be 
filled  by  such  persons  as  have  leisure,  or  by  all  persons  at  such  times  as  they  have 
leisure.  Being  pleasm-able,  they  require  no  inducement  in  the  form  of  price. 
Whether  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle  is  adequate  to  the  production  of 
general  wealth,  and  the  consequent  prevalence  of  leisure  and  freedom  of  choice  in 
regard  to  occupation,  depends  upon  the  correctness  of  the  whole  train  of  proposi- 
tions which  have  been,  and  which  are  to  be  made  upon  the  subject. 

181.  The  next  objection  drawn  from  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle  is  that 
it  makes  no  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  the  poor  and  the  unfortunate, — that, 
although  it  secures  exact  justice,  it  has  in  it  no  provisions  for  benevolence. 

It  has  been  shown  that,  in  order  that  benevolence  be  rightly  appreciated  and  ac- 
cepted as  such,  and  beget  benevolence  in  turn,  it  is  essential  that  equity  should 
first  have  been  done.  Mutual  benevolence  can  only  exist  after  all  the  requirements 
of  equity  have  been  complied  with,  and  that  can  only  be  by  first  knowing  what  the 
requirements  of  equity  really  are ;  where,  in  other  words,  the  relations  of  equity  or 
justice  cease,  and  those  of  benevolence  begin. 

182.  It  is  the  essential  element  of  benevolence  that  it  be  perfectly  voluntary. 
If  it  is  exercised  in  obedience  to  a  demand,  it  is  no  longer  benevolence.  Apply 
these  principles  to  the  question  of  public  or  private  charity.  If  justice  were  done 
to  all  classes  and  all  individuals  in  society;  if,  in  other  words,  the  whole  products 
of  the  labor  of  each  were  secured  to  him  for  his  own  enjoyment,  —  the  occasion  for 
charity,  as  it  is  now  administered,  would  be  almost  wholly  removed.  Pauperism, 
in  any  broad  sense,  would  be  extinguished.  Poverty  would,  so  to  speak,  be  abol- 
ished, except  in  the  very  rare  mstances  of  absolute  disability,  from  disease  or 
accident  overtaking  persons  for  whom  no  prior  provision  had  been  made  either  by 
their  own  accumulations  or  those  of  their  ancestors  or  deceased  friends.  Pauper- 
ism, with  such  rare  exceptions,  is  purely  the  growth  of  the  existing  sj'stem  of  com- 
mercial exchanges,  tending  continually,  as  has  been  shown,  to  make  the  rich  richer 
and  the  poor  poorer. 


116  The  Science  of  Society. 

183.  With  regard,  then,  to  the  few  cases  of  disability,  coupled  with  destitution, 
which  may  always  continue  to  occur,  it  is  obvious  that  that  principle  of  science 
which  intervenes  to  regulate  the  equitable  exchange  of  products  has  no  application 
whatever  where  there  are  no  products  to  exchange.  Equity  is  then  out  of  the 
question.  Equivalents  cannot  be  rendered  because  there  is  nothing  on  the  one  side 
to  render.  Benevolence  comes  then  fairly  in  play.  In  the  same  manner  as  the 
sentiment  of  justice  is  offended  by  the  pretence  of  giving  as  charity  what  is  felt  to 
be  due  as  a  right,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sentiment  of  benevolence  is  offended 
by  a  claim  as  a  matter  of  right  to  that  which  should  be  voluntarily  bestowed,  if  at 
all.  I  have  observed  elsewhere  that  Rowland  Hill  would  never  have  received  the 
magnificent  testimonial  bestowed  upon  him  by  the  English  people,  if  he  had  seen 
fit  to  prefer  a  claim  to  it  as  the  price  of  his  services.  Benevolence  is  conciliated, 
therefore,  the  moment  that  all  claim  is  abandoned,  and  claims  having  no  basis  in 
right  are  abandoned  immediately  whenever  there  is  an  exact  knowledge  of  the 
limits  of  equity.  In  this  manner  the  Cost  Principle,  while  it  does  not  profess  to 
be  benevolent,  serves,  nevertheless,  as  an  inspirer  and  regulator  of  benevolence  it- 
self. While  justice  is  not  benevolence,  therefore,  the  foundations  of  benevolence 
are  still  laid  in  justice. 

184.  In  a  condition  of  society,  then,  in  which  Equity  shall  first  have  been 
secured  to  all,  benevolence,  whenever  the  occasion  shall  arise,  will  flow  forth  from 
every  heart  with  unmeasured  abundance.  The  disabled  and  unfortunate  will  be 
the  pets  and  spoiled  children  of  the  community.  It  is  a  mistake  in  the  philosophy 
of  mind  to  suppose  that  there  is  naturally  any  sense  of  degradation  from  being  the 
object  of  real  charity.  There  never  is  any  repugnance  on  the  part  of  any  one  to 
being  the  recipient  of  genuine  benevolence.  The  tenant  of  the  poor-house  in  our 
pauper-ridden  civilization  is  degraded  and  made  sensible  of  his  degradation  by  the 
malevolence,  never  by  the  benevolent  sentiment,  of  society  toward  him.  He  is 
first  hated  because  injustice  has  been  done  him,  and  then  hated  because  he  is  a 
bm-den  to  society. 

185.  This  is  the  true  solution  of  the  question  of  charity.  So  long  as  persons 
exist  who  are  unable  to  support  themselves  from  the  products  of  their  own  labor, 
they  must  be  maintained  by  the  labor  of  other  persons,  without  rendering  any 
equivalent,  and  to  be  so  maintained  is  to  depend  upon  charity.  There  is  no  es- 
caping from  this  necessity.  Partnership  or  associative  arrangements,  or  the  theory 
of  Communism,  may  disguise  the  fact,  but  the  fact  continues  to  exist,  nevertheless. 
The  remedy  for  the  disagreeable  features  of  charity  is  not  to  be  sought  by  the  im- 
possible means  of  removing  the  fact,  but  by  improving  the  general  condition  of  so- 
ciety to  the  point  where  the  demands  for  charity  shall  be  so  rare,  and  the  general 
abundance  of  means  so  great,  that  there  wiU  be  strife  for  the  enjoyment  of  oppor- 
tunities to  gratify  the  benevolent  sentiment.  The  relation  of  donor  and  benefi- 
ciary wHl  then  be  alike  agreeable  and  honorable  to  both.      There  is  nothing, 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,  117 

however,  in  the  Cost  Principle  to  prevent,  but  every  thing  to  encom-age  and  require, 
the  extension  of  the  principle  of  insurance  to  every  thing  to  which  it  is  applicable. 
Risk  enters  into  cost,  and  the  calculations  of  risk,  as  in  the  case  of  tables  of  lon- 
gevity and  the  like,  i-educe  that  element  to  measurement,  and  render  it  as  easy  of 
calculation  as  any  other  element.  Hence,  parties  who  earn  a  surplus  at  any  period 
of  their  lives  can  always  insure  permanent  provision  for  the  future.  With  refer- 
ence to  the  very  small  number  of  those  who,  from  the  causes  mentioned,  may  never 
be  able  to  do  that,  the  observations  made  above  hold  good.  They  must  be  the  ob- 
jects of  the  benevolent  regards  of  the  community,  and  not  rely  upon  any  law  regu- 
lating equivalents  of  which  they  have  none  to  give.  Benevolence,  being  purely 
voluntary  and  illimitable,  cannot  be  measured  nor  prescribed  for.  Any  attempt 
to  organize  it,  or  dictate  its  action,  is,  therefore,  as  much  out  of  place  as  it  would 
be  to  regulate  politeness  by  -legislation.  First  do  justice  and  extinguish  the 
pauperism,  crime,  and  disease  which  grow  out  of  relations  of  injustice,  and  cease 
to  fear  that  the  spontaneous  benevolence  of  humanity  will  not  be  amply  adequate 
to  provide  for  the  sparsedly  scattered  instances  of  misfortune  which  may  ever  re- 
main as  an  incentive  to  the  healthy  action  of  that  affection. 

186.  There  is  a  subtle  objection  sometimes  urged  against  the  whole  doctrine  of 
attractive  industry,  or,  in  other  words,  against  the  propriety  of  every  kidividual 
being  employed  in  that  way  in  which  his  tastes  incline  him  to  act,  and  for  which 
his  natural  gifts  particularly  qualify  him.  It  is  said  that  genius  or  superior  natu- 
ral endowment  in  any  direction  is  always,  in  some  sense,  a  diseased  or  abnormal 
condition  of  the  man ;  that  the  true  type  of  humanity  is  the  exact  equilibrium  of 
all  the  faculties,  and  a  consequent  equal  capacity  for  every  species  of  performance ; 
that  the  exercise  of  any  faculty  augments  its  power,  and  hence  that,  if  those  fac- 
ulties which  are  in  excess  are  chiefly  exercised,  the  deflection  from  the  true  direc- 
tion of  integral  individual  development  is  continually  rendered  greater  and  greater. 
Hence  the  curious  result,  in  reasoning,  is  arrived  at  that  every  individual  should  be 
constantly  or  chiefly  engaged  at  those  occupations  for  which  he  has  least  natural 
endowment,  and  which  are  least  agreeable,  or,  in  other  words,  the  most  repugnant, 
to  him. 

187.  This  is  an  extreme  and  erroneous  presentation  of  a  principle  of  psychology 
and  physiology;  but,  having  a  coloring  of  truth,  it  requires  to  be  carefiilly  con- 
sidered and  distinguished.  The  assumption  here  made  is  that  there  is  one  given 
standard  of  perfection  for  universal  manhood,  which  is  the  exact  equilibrium  of  all 
the  faculties.  It  is  obvious  that,  according  to  this  theory,  the  perfection  of  the 
race  would  be  the  reduction  of  all  men  to  the  common  standard,  until  every  indi- 
vidual would  be  merely  the  monotonous  repetition  of  every  other.  It  is  not  so 
clear,  under  this  hypothesis,  why  the  Almighty  should  not  have  created  one  big 
man  instead  of  so  many  little  ones.  Since  economy  of  means  is  one  of  His  striking 
characteristics,  as  exhibited  everywhere  in  nature,  the  probabilities  would  cer- 


118  The  Science  of  Society. 

tainly  be  in  favor  of  such  a  policy.  Slight  reflection,  however,  will  show  that  this 
"  Simplistic  Unity  "  is  no  part  of  the  scheme  of  creation.  "  Universal  Variety  in 
Unity  "  is  the  law  of  the  universe.  The  theoretical  perfection  of  an  exact  equi- 
librium of  faculties  has  no  example  in  nature.  It  is  an  ideal  point  around  which 
all  individual  organizations  rotate  in  orbits  more  or  less  eccentric,  all  of  them,  how- 
ever, when  not  arbitrarily  interfered  with,  unapproachably  distinct  from  every 
other,  and  hence  positively  incapable  of  collision.  Individuality  is  infinite  and 
universal.  It  cannot  be  extinguished,  and,  if  it  could,  the  result  would  be  to  re- 
duce the  universe  to  zero. 

188.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that,  where  some  single  faculty 
shows  itself  in  any  extraordinary  degree  of  activity  and  power,  there  is  a  certain 
derangement  of  the  whole  system,  growing  out  of,  or  conducing  to,  what  may  be 
regarded  as  disease.  Genius  verges  upon  insanity.  Too  great  a  departure  from 
the  ideal  equilibrium  of  powers  is  unwholesome  and  dangerous  to  the  physical,  in- 
tellectual, and  moral  nature.  Hence  the  arbitrary  and  infinitesimal  division  of 
labor  without  variety,  of  which  our  existing  civilization  boasts,  is  a  wretched  per- 
version of  the  powers  of  the  individual.  It  pushes  out  and  develops  some  one 
faculty  to  the  neglect  and  destruction  of  all  others,  sinking  the  manhood  of  the 
man  in  the  skill  of  the  artisan.  Every  other  faculty  is  suffered  to  wither  and  die. 
The  individual,  instead  of  being  integrally  developed,  is  distorted.  Men  and 
women  are  sacrificed  and  subordinated  by  this  means  to  Skill,  as  they  are  through 
Political  Economy  to  Wealth,  through  political  organizations  to  Government,  and 
through  the  church  to  ritual  observances.  Thus  Utility,  Enjoyment,  Social  Order, 
and  Religion  are  overlaid  and  smothered  by  the  very  arrangements  which  are  in- 
stituted professedly  to  secure  those  ends.  A  person  who  has  been  forced  into  the 
performance  of  some  one  function  only  during  life  is  necessarily  the  helpless  play- 
thing of  circumstances.  He  is  rendered  wholly  imbecile  for  all  else.  All  the 
higher  purposes  of  his  being  are  defeated  by  an  insane  and  incessant  devotion  to 
some  isolated  fag-end  of  human  affairs. 

189.  Hence  it  follows  that  true  development  is  not  to  be  found  in  either  ex- 
treme. In  medio  tutissimus  ibis.  That  man  may  be  said  to  be  best  educated  who 
has  a  general  acquaintance  with  the  largest  scope  of  subjects,  coupled  with  a  par- 
ticular and  specific  knowledge  of  some  one,  two,  three,  or  more  pursuits  to  which 
he  chiefly  dedicates  his  labors.  In  the  beginning  of  a  reform  movement,  while  the 
circle  is  small,  the  most  useful  men  of  all  are  those  who  are  spoken  of  disparag- 
ingly, in  existing  society,  as  "Jacks-at-alltrades,"^— those  who  can  turn  themselves 
the  most  readily  from  one  occupation  to  another.  In  this  respect  the  American 
character  is  superior  to  that  of  all  other  people.  .  The  largest  development  of  the 
Individual  tends  in  that  direction.  With  the  increase  of  the  circle,  and  greater 
general  security  of  condition,  a  more  exclusive  or  one-sided  class  of  talent  will  find 
its  position,  and  a  greater  perfection  of  details  —  a  higher  composite  perfection  of 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  119 

Society  —  will  then  be  achieved.  The  highest  development  of  society  demands  the 
existence  and  cooperation  of  both  classes.  The  true  equilibrium  is  that  the  versa- 
tile man  shall  not  go  to  the  extreme  of  having  neither  .preferences  nor  excellences 
in  his  performance,  nor  the  devotee  to  a  particular  function  to  that  of  having  no 
tastes  or  qualifications  for  any  other.  The  point  now  to  be  observed  is  that  Na- 
ture rarely,  if  ever,  pushes  things  to  either  one  or  the  other  of  these  extremes. 
There  is  no  man  who  is  by  nature  totally  indifferent  as  to  what  he  will  do,  nor  any 
so  born  to  a  single  attraction  that  he  never  develops  tastes  for  any  other,  while 
some  have  greater  diversity,  and  some  greater  particularity  of  tastes,  by  natural 
organization.  Hence  all  that  is  necessary  in  order  to  secure  the  right  distribution 
of  functions  is  that  Nature  be  left  wholly  unembarrassed,  —  that  no  individual  be 
driven  or  induced  by  the  arrangements  of  society,  such  as  inordinate  profits,  dis- 
proportionate honors,  or  poverty,  into,  or  detained  in,  occupations  discordant  with 
his  individual  preferences  or  desires,  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  those  natural  pre- 
ferences or  desires  be  not  overstimulated  by  the  same  or  a  different  class  of  in- 
fluences, on  the  other.  To  secure  that  condition  of  things  there  must  he  an  equilibrium 
between  attractions  and  rewards.  This  is  precisely  what  is  effected  by  the  adoption 
of  cost  as  the  limit  of  price.  The  greater  the  attraction  for  a  particular  occupation 
the  less  the  price ;  consequently,  while  it  is  placed  within  the  power  of  every  one 
to  follow  his  attractions  so  far  as  he  may  choose  to  do  so  at  his  own  cost, — that  is, 
by  sacrificing  the  larger  gains  of  more  repugnant  industry,  —  still,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  is  constantly  appealed  to  by  his  cupidity,  —  that  is,  by  another  class  of 
wants,  —  to  compete  with  others  in  various  kinds  of  labor  more  burdensome  to  him, 
and  thereby  to  develop  and  keep  in  healthy  exercise  those  faculties  with  which  he 
is  less  liberally  endowed  by  nature. 

190.  Again,  if  any  individual  is  imbued  with  the  theory  that  to  indulge  in  the 
exercise  of  his  best  developed  faculties  is  injurious  to  his  health,  moral  attributes, 
or  reasoning  powers,  by  throwing  him  out  of  the  ideal  perfection  of  his  nature, 
then  that  supposed  injury  to  his  nature  becomes  immediately,  with  him,  an  item 
of  cost,  raises  the  price  of  his  labor  in  that  function,  throws  him  out  of  it  by  the 
competition  of  others  having  similar  abilities  with  a  different  appreciation  of  the 
wear  and  tear  of  employing  them,  and  places  him  in  the  performance  of  something 
which  will  call  into  play  those  faculties  which  he  deems  deficient  and  wishes  to 
cultivate.  The  principle  is  adequate,  therefore,  to  every  emergency.  But  as  we 
have  seen  already  that  the  theory  itself  is  only  rational  as  a  protest  against  an  ex- 
treme use  of  the  superior  faculties,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  balance  of  natural 
attractions  will,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  determine  the  general  direction  of 
industry,  and  the  more  so  as  the  increased  abundance  of  wealth  renders  price  a  less 
important  consideration.  The  true  equilibrium  will  then  be  preserved,  however, 
by  an  augmented  scope  of  attractions,  which  we  have  seen  is  the  type  of  individual 
development.     That  the  conditions  of  attractive  industry  are  supplied  by  the  Cost 


120  The  Science  of  Society. 

Principle  will  be  more  fully  shown  in  the  following  chapter,  in  which  results  will 
be  partially  sketched  which  are  more  directly  in  harmony  with  the  flattering  anti- 
cipations of  those  reformera  who  are  most  advanced,  ideally. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,  121 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ATTRACTIVE  INDUSTRY,  CO-OPERATION,  AND  THE  ECONOMIES. 

191.  We  have  now  arrived  at  a  point  from  which  we  are  prepared  to  discover 
and  appreciate  the  higher  results  of  the  Cost  Principle.  The  view,  however,  which 
I  shall  but  slightly  open,  of  the  grand  and  enchanting  prospects  foreshadowed  for 
the  race  by  so  simple  a  means  as  the  mere  enactment  of  justice  in  the  daily  trans- 
actions of  man  with  man  will  be  left  intentionally  incomplete.  The  mass  of  man- 
kind have  but  little  toleration  for  Utopias.  Those  who  are  ready  to  believe  in 
them,  and  who  simply  demand,  as  the  basis  of  their  faith,  a  more  solid  foimdation 
than  airy  fancies,  will  trace,  it  is  hoped,  for  themselves,  the  outlines  of  the  future, 
upon  slight  hints  drawn  from  the  more  obvious  operations  of  fundamental  princi- 
ples. Those  who  are  still  more  credulous  will  feel  still  less  need  for  elaborate  de- 
monstrations. The  great  mass  of  those  who  have  some  aspirations  after  reform 
have  no  ideal  beyond  the  first  stage  of  the  results  of  true  principles.  Their  present 
conception  will  be  filled  by  relations  of  justice, — the  extinction  of  crime,  frauds, 
pauperism,  and  the  generally  discordant  features  of  our  existing  social  arrange- 
ments. They  have  little  thought  of  the  positive  construction  of  harmonic  society. 
There  is  danger  that  such  persons  would  be  repelled,  rather  than  attracted,  by  any 
high-wrought  pictures  of  the  future.  They  can  best  be  left  to  work  out  a  higher 
conception  by  their  own  intuitions  and  reflections  while  laboring  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  what  they  now  perceive.  There  are  others,  especially  among  the  admirers 
of  Robert  Owen,  Saint  Simon,  and  Fourier,  whose  mental  vision  is  accustomed  to 
the  contemplation  of  brilliant  pictures,  and  who  will  be  not  unlikely  to  complain 
of  the  Science  of  Society,  as  here  presented,  on  the  ground  that  it  does  not  begin 
by  dealing  with  palatial  structures,  magnificent  ornamental  grounds,  operatic  per- 
formances, sculpture,  and  abundant  luxury  of  all  sorts.  To  those  among  this  latter 
class  who  trace  effects  back  to  their  causes,  and  causes  forward  to  their  eft'ects,  who 
can  listen  with  pleasure  to  the  dry  preliminary  details  of  rigid  science,  the  Cost 
Principle  will,  on  examination,  become  a  mine  rich  in  treasures  of  the  kind  they 
are  seeking.  They  will  discover  that  by  means  of  it  we  are  planting  the  roots  from 
which  will  inevitably  grow  all  the  higher  harmonic  results  in  society  which  they 
have  ever  contemplated.  They  will  perceive  that  true  society  is  a  growth  from  true 
principles,  not  an  artificial  formation,  —  a  growth  from  seeds  implanted  in  the  soil 
of  such  society  as  now  exists, — the  only  soil  we  have.  They  will  perceive  that 
while  their  ends  and  purposes  are  true,  and  their  aspirations  prophetic,  their 


> 


122  The  Science  of  Society. 

methods  have  not  been  scientific;  and  such,  perhaps  few  in  number,  will  return 
with  renewed  zeal  to  the  work  of  reform,  through  the  more  modest  and  unpretend- 
ing instrumentalities  of  the  Labor  Note  and  the  formation  of  Equitable  Villages. 
Others,  who  have  been  too  long  dazzled  by  the  splendor  of  that  brilliant  future  in 
which  they  make  their  ideal  habitation  to  be  able  to  look  with  complacency  upon 
any  practical  adaptation  to  the  present  wants  of  mankind,  must  bide  their  time. 

192.  My  present  labor  is  to  commend  the  Cost  Principle,  as  far  as  practicable, 
to  each  of  these  several  classes  without  offending  the  prejudices  of  any.  I  shall 
therefore,  as  I  have  intimated,  sketch  merely  in  outline  the  tendencies  of  this  prin- 
ciple to  accomplish,  in  social  relations,  the  highest  results  that  have  ever  been 
dreamed  of  by  any  class  of  reformers,  leaving  at  the  same  time  intact,  at  every 
stage  of  progress,  the  freedom  of  the  Individual.  It  is  not  those  ulterior  results 
with  which  the  reformers  of  this  day  will  have  chiefly  to  employ  themselves. 
Those  who  require  to  perceive  them  to  find  in  the  principles  a  sufficient  stimulus 
to  work  for  their  realization,  and  with  whom  the  beatific  vision  would  serve  rather 
as  a  stimulant  than  as  a  sedative,  will  be  precisely  those  who  can  fill  up  the  picture 
without  foreign  aid. 

193.  The  principal  among  the  higher  results  growing  directly  out  of  the  opera- 
tions of  the  Cost  Principle  may  be  generalized  under  the  heads  of:  1.  Attractive 
Industry.  2.  Cooperation  instead  of  Antagonism,  and  3.  The  Economies  of  Co- 
operation and  the  Large  Scale, 

194.  The  main  features  of  Attractive  Industry  are,  as  already  shown,  that  each 
individual  have,  at  all  times,  the  choice  of  his  own  pursuits,  with  the  opportunity 
to  vary  them  ad  libitum.  This  last,  the  opportunity  to  varj^  one's  industry,  results 
from  the  fact  that  all  avenues  are  equally  open  to  all  by  the  extinction  of  specula- 
tion, and  the  adoption  of  cost  as  the  limit  of  price,  whereby  it  becomes  the  interest 
of  all  that  each  should  perfect  himself  in  various  occupations,  thereby  discovering 
those  at  which  he  can  be  most  effective,  and  avoiding  the  liability  to  be  employed 
at  those  for  which  he  has  no  attraction  or  capacity.  The  freedom  to  vary  involves 
the  original  freedom  to  choose,  which  stands  upon  the  same  basis.  The  variety  of 
individual  taste  leads  to  a  continual  deviation  on  the  part  of  single  individuals 
from  the  common  standards  of  estimate,  according  to  which  every  article  tends 
constantly  to  acquire,  under  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle,  a  settled  and  de- 
terminate price.  The  ideas  here  suggested  require,  however,  to  be  separately  and 
more  specifically  considered. 

195.  How  is  there  any  equality  established  in  the  price  asked  by  different  people 
for  the  same  kind  of  labor,  when  the  price  is  based  upon  the  estimate  which  each 
one  makes  of  the  repugnance  of  that  labor  to  himself  or  herself  personally,  —  when, 
too,  it  is  well  known  that  there  exists  such  variety  of  tastes,  or  attractions  and  re- 
pulsions in  different  individuals  for  various  kinds  of  industry? 

The  answer  is  first  practical,  as  follows :  During  the  three  years  and  upward  of 


Cost  the   Limit  of  Price.  123 

practice  at  Trial ville,  aud  during  two  previous  experiments,  one  at  Cincinnati, 
and  one  at  New  Harmony,  Indiana,  extending  to  six  or  seven  years  of  the  practice 
of  the  Cost  Principle,  and  of  the  use  of  the  Labor  Note  in  connection  with  it,  by 
several  thousand  people  in  all,  the  variation  in  all  the  different  species  of  male  and 
female  industry  has  not  been  more  than  about  one  third  above  and  one  third  be- 
low the  standard  occupation  of  corn-raising,  each  person  putting  his  or  her  own 
estimate  upon  their  labor.  To  explain:  The  standard  labor  being  reckoned  at 
twenty  pounds  of  corn  to  the  hour,  as  the  yard-stick,  or  measure  of  comparison, 
no  other  lalior  performed  either  by  man  or  woman  —  and  it  must  be  remembered 
that  under  the  Cost  Principle  men  and  women  are  remunerated  equally — has  been 
estimated  at  more  than  thirty  pounds  of  corn  to  the  hour,  nor  at  less  than  twelve^ 
pounds  to  the  hour. 

196.  The  further  practical  result  is  that  every  ordinary  commodity,  though  li- 
able to  fluctuate  in  price  with  every  change  of  circumstances,  like  a  difference  of 
locality,  extraordinary  difference  in  the  productiveness  of  different  seasons,  etc., 
soon  finds  a  general  level,  and  has  a  known  or  fixed  price  in  the  community,  which 
is  never  disturbed  except  for  some  obvious  cause.  Thus,  for  example,  wheat  has  in 
this  manner  settled  down  by  the  common  suffrage  at  Trialville  to  cost  six  hours 
of  labor  to  the  bushel,  or  to  yield  ten  pounds  to  the  hour.  Milk  is  ten  minutes  labor 
to  the  quart, — the  elements  of  the  calculation  including  the  whole  cost  of  rearing 
a  cow  from  the  calf,  the  average  length  of  a  cow's  usefulness  for  milking  purposes, 
the  cost  of  feeding,  milking,  and  distributing  the  milk  to  the  customers,  etc.  Eggs 
are  twenty  minutes  to  the  dozen.  Potatoes  are  an  hour  and  a  quarter  to  the  bushel 
when  cultivated  by  the  plough  exclusively,  and  three  or  four  hours  to  the  bushel 
when  cultivated  by  the  hoe.  The  manufacture  of  shoes,  apart  from  the  material, 
is  from  three  hours  to  nine  hours  to  the  pair,  according  to  the  quality;  boots 
eighteen  hours,  etc. 

197.  Another  practical  effect,  as  already  observed,  is  that  the  principle  of  exact 
equity,  when  it  enters  into  the  mind,  operates  with  such  force  that  persons  on  all 
hands  become  over-anxious  to  ascertain  the  precise  truth  with  regard  to  the  relative 
cost  of  every  article,  while  the  general  improvement  of  condition  renders  them  less 
anxious  about  trifling  individual  advantage. 

198.  Although  commodities  thus  settle  naturally  and  rapidly  to  a  standard  price 
according  to  what  is  the  average  time  bestowed  upon  their  production,  and  the 
average  estimate  of  the  relative  repugnance  of  each  kind  of  labor,  —  in  other 
words,  the  average  of  cost,  —  there  are,  or  may  be,  individual  differences  in  the 
estimate  of  repugnance,  which  will  rise  far  above  or  sink  below  the  average. 
These  individualities  of  preference  for  one  species  of  industry  over  another  will 
probably  become  more  marked  in  proportion  as  men  and  women  can  better  afford 
to  indulge  their  tastes  and  preferences,  in  consequence  of  a  general  improvement 
of  their  pecuniary  condition.     Again,  those  tastes  themselves  will  become  more 


124  The  Science  of  Society. 

developed  with  the  increase  of  culture.  The  opportunity  for  their  indulgence  will 
be  afforded  also  in  proportion  to  the  augmentation  of  the  circle  in  which  these 
principles  are  practised.  Hence  it  follows  that  whatever  is  more  exceptional  or 
recondite  in  the  subject  must  as  yet  be  settled  by  recurring  to  the  principles  them- 
selves, the  circle  in  which  they  have  hitherto  been  applied  being  too  small  to  realize 
all  the  results. 

199.  The  theoretical  answer,  then,  deduced  from  the  principle,  in  addition  to 
the  practical  answer  just  given,  is  this:  "Whenever  an  individual  estimates  labor 
in  any  particular  branch  of  industry  as  less  onerous  or  repugnant  than  the  standard 
or  average  estimate,  he  will  present  himself  as  a  candidate  for  that  kind  of  labor 
at  a  less  price  per  hour  than  others,  and  will,  in  consequence,  be  selected  in  prefer- 
ence to  others,  unless  the  inferior  price  is  more  than  counterbalanced  by  want  of 
skill  or  capacity  for  that  kind  of  labor.  But  preference  for  a  particular  kind  of 
industry — especially  when  there  are  facilities  for  trying  one's  self  at  various 
kinds — generally  accompanies  and  often  results  from  superior  skill  or  facility  in 
the  performance  of  that  kind  of  labor.  Hence  a  taste  or  "attraction"  for  a  par- 
ticular branch  of  industry,  by  lowering  the  price  at  which  a  person  is  ready  to 
undertake  it,  tends  to  throw  that  branch  of  industry,  or  rather  that  particular 
labor,  into  the  hands  of  the  individual  who  has  that  attraction. 

200.  In  the  nest  place,  as  these  two  properties  —  namely,  a  marked  attraction 
and  eminent  ability  for  a  particular  kind  of  labor  —  accompany  each  other,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  best  talent  is  procured  at  the  lowest  instead  of  the  highest  price, 
apart  from  the  case  of  an  acquired  skill,  which  has  required  a  separate  and  unpro- 
ductive labor  for  its  acquisition,  and  which  is,  therefore,  as  we  have  seen,  an  ele- 
ment of  cost  and  price.  In  other  words,  contrary  to  what  is  now  the  case,  the  man 
or  woman  who  can  do  the  most  work  of  any  given  kind  in  a  given  time  and  do  it  best, 
will  work  at  the  cheapest  rate,  so  that,  both  on  account  of  the  more  and  better  work 
and  of  the  less  price,  he  or  she  will  have  the  advantage  in  bidding  for  his  or  her 
favorite  occupation,  competition  intervening  to  bring  down  the  average  of  price  to 
the  lowest  point  for  every  article,  but  with  none  but  beneficial  results  to  any  one,  as  will 
be  presently  more  distinctly  shown.     (208.) 

201.  Such  are  the  necessary  workings  of  the  Cost  Principle,  and  hence  follow 
certain  extremely  important  results.  I.  Herein  is  the  chief  element  of  "  Attractive 
Industry,"  the  grand  desideratum  of  human  conditions,  first  distinctly  propounded 
by  Fourier,  and  now  extensively  appreciated  by  reformers,  —  the  choice  by  each 
individual  of  his  own  function  or  occupation,  according  to  his  natural  bias  or 
genius,  and  the  consequent  employment  of  all  human  powers  to  the  best  advan- 
tage of  all. 

202.  II.  By  this  means  competition  is  directed  to,  and  made  to  work  at,  precisely  the 
right  point.  Competition  is  spoken  of  by  those  who  live  in  and  breathe  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  existing  social  order,  as  "the  life  of  business,"— the  grand  stimulant, 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  125 

without  which  the  world  would  sink  into  stagnation.  It  is  spoken  of,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  the  reformers  of  the  Socialist  school,  who  loathe  the  existing  order,  and 
loug  earnestly  for  the  reign  of  harmony  in  human  relations,  as  a  cruel  and  mon-' 
strous  principle,  kept  in  operation  only  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  blood  and  tears  of 
the  gi'oaniug  millions  of  maukind.  In  point  of  fact  it  is  both;  or,  more  properly, 
it  is  either  one  or  the  other,  according  to  the  direction  in  which  it  is  allowed  to 
operate.  Competition  is  a  motive  power,  like  steam  or  electricity,  and  is  either 
destructive  or  genial,  according  to  its  application.  In  the  existing  social  order  it 
is  chiefly  destructive,  because  it  operates  upon  the  point  of  insuring  security  of  con- 
dition, or  the  means  of  existence.  It  is,  therefore,  desperate,  unrelenting,  and  con- 
sequently destructive.  Under  the  reign  of  equity  it  will  operate  at  the  point  of 
superiority  of  performance  in  the  respective  functions  of  each  member  of  society, 
and  will,  therefore,  be  pm-ely  beneficent  in  its  results.  In  the  scramble  between 
wrecked  and  struggling  seafarers  for  places  in  the  life-boat,  we  have  an  illustra- 
tion of  competition  for  security  of  condition.  In  the  generous  emulation  between 
those  safely  seated  in  a  pleasure-boat,  who  think  themselves  most  competent  to 
pull  at  the  oar,  you  have  an  illustration  of  genial  or  beneficent  competition  — 
competition  for  superiority  of  performance  —  under  such  circumstances  that,  who- 
ever carries  off  the  palm,  the  interests  of  the  whole  are  equally  promoted.  In 
either  case  it  is  the  same  motive  power,  the  same  energy-giving  principle,  working 
merely  at  a  different  point,  or  with  a  different  application,  and  with  a  different 
stimulus.     (159.) 

203.  Competition  in  the  existing  social  order  is,  therefore,  chiefly  destructive, 
because  there  is  now  no  security  of  condition  for  any  class  of  society.  Among 
the  less  fortimate  classes,  competition  bears  more  upon  the  point  of  getting  the 
chance  to  labor  at  all,  at  any  occupation,  which,  inequitably  paid,  as  the  labor  of 
those  classes  is,  will  afford  the  bare  means  of  existence.  Among  the  more  fortu- 
nate classes,  increased  accumulation  is  the  only  means  now  known  of  approximating 
security  of  condition;  hence  competition  bears  upon  that  point.  Among  all  classes, 
therefore,  the  competition  is  chiefly  for  security  of  condition,  and  therefore  merci- 
less and  destructive.  It  is  only  occasionally  and  by  way  of  exception,  wherever  a 
little  temporary  security  is  obtained,  that  examples  are  found  of  the  natural  and 
beneficent  competition  for  superiority  of  performance.  That  however  springs  up 
with  such  spontaneous  alacrity,  so  soon  as  the  smallest  chance  is  given  it,  as  abun- 
dantly to  prove  that  it  is  the  true  spirit,  the  indigenous  growth  of  the  human  soul, 
when  uncontrolled  by  adverse  circumstances  and  conditions. 

204.  Under  the  operations  of  the  Cost  Principle,  which  will  be  the  reign  of 
equity,  the  primary  wants  of  each  will  be  supplied  by  the  employment  of  a  very 
small  portion  of  their  time,  and  the  ease  and  certainty  with  which  they  can  be  sup- 
plied will  place  each  above  the  motives  now  existing  to  invade  tlie  property  of 
others.     This  condition  of  things,  together  with  the  substitution  of  general  co- 


126  The  Science  of  Society. 

operation  and  abundance  for  general  antagonism  and  poverty,  will  furnish  a  secvr 
rity  of  person  and  property  which  nothing  else  can  produce.  To  this  will  be  added 
such  accumulations  as  each  may,  without  the  stimulus  of  desperation,  choose  to 
acquire. 

205.  In  this  condition  of  security,  natural  and  beneficent  competition  will  spring 
up;  that  is,  such  as  bears  upon  the  point  of  superiority  of  performance,  —  not  only 
for  such  reasons  as  exist  and  occasionally  develop  themselves  in  the  existing  soci- 
ety, but  also  because,  under  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle,  every  person  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  necessarily  gratified  with  the  pursuit  of  his  favorite  occupation, 
in  proportion  as  his  superiority  of  performance  renders  him  the  more  successful 
competitor  for  employment  in  that  line,  —  not  hindered  by  asking  a  higher  price 
for  his  greater  excellence,  as  now,  but  aided,  on  the  other  hand,  by  his  readiness 
to  perform  it  at  a  lower  price,  consequent  upon  his  greater  attraction  or  his  want 
of  repugnance  for  that  kind  of  industry,  according  to  what  has  been  already  ex- 
plained. This,  then,  is  the  second  grand  result  of  the  varying  tastes  for  different 
occupations,  under  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle, — namely,  that  competi- 
tion is  directed  to,  and  made  to  work  at,  the  right  point, — superiority  of  perform- 
ance, not  security  of  condition. 

206.  Under  the  operation  of  cost  as  the  limit  of  price,  things  will  be  so  com- 
pletely revolutionized  that,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  will  be  to  the  positive  interest 
of  every  workman  to  he  thrown  out  of  his  own  business  by  the  competition  of  any  one 
who  can  do  (he  same  labor  better  and  cheaper.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  it  is  an  ad- 
vantage for  every  body  that  the  prices  of  every  product  should  become  less  and 
less,  until,  if  that  be  possible,  they  cease,  through  the  general  abundance,  to  have 
price  altogether.  Under  the  present  false  arrangements  of  commerce  we  have  seen 
that  it  is  not  for  the  benefit,  but  for  the  injury  of  many,  that  such  reduction  of 
price  should  occur,  either  through  competition,  the  invention  of  new  machines,  or 
otherwise.  (100.)  Some  of  the  reasons  of  that  unnatural  result  have  been  pointed 
out.  (161,  162.)  It  is,  in  fine,  because  the  workingmen  are  reduced  below  the 
ability  of  availing  themselves  of  what  should  be,  in  the  nature  of  things,  a  blessing 
to  all  mankind.  When  the  market  is  said  to  be  overstocked  with  coats  or  hats 
and  when,  as  a  consequence  of  this,  the  tailors  and  hatters  are  thrown  out  of  em- 
ployment, it  is  not  the  fact  that  there  are  more  coats  and  hats  made  than  there  are 
backs  and  heads  to  wear  them.  Not  at  all.  It  is  only  that  there  are  more  than 
there  is  ability  to  buy.  Those  who  have  earned  the  means  to  pay  for  them  do  not 
possess  the  means.  They  have  been  robbed  of  the  means  by  receiving  less  than 
equivalents  for  their  labor.  Hence,  though  they  loant,  they  cannot  buy,  and  hence, 
ao-ain,  those  who  produce  must  stop  producing.  They  are  therefore  thrown  out  of 
employment,  and  it  is  falsely  said  that  there  is  over-production  in  that  branch  of 
industry.  In  the  reign  of  equity,  where  all  receive  equivalents  for  their  labor,  this 
cause  of  what  is  called  over-production  will  not  exist. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  127 

207.  The  point  here  asserted  will  be  rendered  still  more  clear  under  the  follow- 
ing head.  (208.)  Along  with  the  extinction  of  speculation,  by  Cost  as  the  limit 
of  Price,  competition  will  cease  to  be  a  desperate  game  played  for  desperate  stakes. 
It  will  not  relate  to  procuring  the  opportunity  to  labor,  as  that  will  be  the  commou 
and  assured  inheritance  of  all.  It  will  not  lelate  to  securing  an  augmentation  of 
Price,  because  Price  will  be  adjusted  by  Science  and  guarded  by  Good  Morals, 
public  opinion  and  private  interest  concurring  to  keep  it  at  what  science  awards. 
It  will  relate  solely,  in  fine,  to  excellence  of  performance,  —  to  the  giving  to  each 
individual  of  that  position  in  life  to  which  his  tastes  incline  him,  and  for  which  his 
powers  of  mind  and  body  adapt  him,  even  the  selfishness  that  might  otherwise 
embitter  such  a  strife  being  tempered,  or  neutralized,  by  the  equilibrium  of  a 
greater  price  for  more  I'epugnant  labor. 

208.  III.  Competition  is  rendered  cooperative  instead  of  antagonistic.  This  may 
not  at  first  seem  to  be  a  distinct  point,  but  it  is  really  so.  It  was  shown  before 
that  competition  is  made  to  work  at  the  right  point,  —  namely,  excellence  of  per- 
formance. But  that  excellence  or  superiority  might  still  enure  exclusively  or 
chiefly  to  the  benefit  of  the  individual  who  possesses  it.  Such  is  now  the  case,  to  a 
fearful  extent,  with  machinery,  which  has  the  first  of  these  properties, — namely, 
that  it  competes  with  labor  at  the  right  point,  excellence  of  performance, — but 
has  not  the  second ;  that  is,  it  is  not  cooperative  with  unaided  human  labor,  but 
antagonistic  to  it,  turning  out  thousands  of  laborers  to  starve,  on  account  of  its  own 
superiority. 

The  point  to  be  shown  now  is,  that  under  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle, 
excellence  of  performance  —  the  point  competed  for,  whether  by  individuals  or 
machinery — enures  equally  to  the  benefit  of  all,  and  hence  that  competition, 
rightly  directed,  and  working  under  the  true  law  of  price,  is  cooperative  and  not 
antagonistic ;  although,  as  I'espects  machinery,  the  demonstration  will  be  rendered 
more  perfect  when  we  come  to  consider  the  legitimate  use  of  capital.     (243.) 

209.  Illustrations  of  practical  operation  will  be  better  understood  if  drawn  from 
the  affairs  of  the  small  village  than  if  taken  from  the  more  extended  and  complex 
business  of  the  large  town. 

Suppose,  then,  that  in  such  a  village  A  is  an  extraordinary  adept  with  the  axe. 
He  can  chop  three  cords  of  wood  a  day.  C  and  D  are  the  next  in  facility  at  this 
labor  to  A,  and  can  chop  two  cords  and  a  half  a  day.  Now,  under  the  opera- 
tion of  this  principle,  as  showed  previously,  if  they  are  employed  at  all  in  chopping, 
they  will  all  be  paid  at  the  same  rate  per  hour.  If  there  is  any  difference,  it  will 
probably  be  that  A,  along  with  this  superior  ability,  will  have  an  extraordinary 
fondness  for  the  kind  of  labor  as  compared  with  other  kinds,  or,  what  is  the  same 
thing,  he  will  have  less  repugnance  for  it,  and  that  he  will,  if  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  principle,  place  his  labor  at  a  less  price  than  the  established  average  price 
for  wood-chopping.     The  consequence  will  be  that  the  services  of  A  will  be  first 


128  The  /Science  of  Society. 

called  into  requisition  for  all  the  wood-chopping  in  the  village,  so  long  as  there  is 
not  more  than  he  can  or  is  willing  to  do.  It  wUl  only  be  when  the  quantity  of 
labor  is  greater  than  he  can  or  will  perform  that  the  services  of  C  and  D  will  be 
required,  then  those  of  the  next  grade  of  capacity,  and  so  on.  The  point  now  to 
be  illustrated  is  that  it  is  the  whole  village  that  is  benefited  by  the  superior  excel- 
lence of  A,  and  then  of  B  and  C,  etc.,  in  this  business,  and  not  those  individuals 
alone.  While  A  can  chop  all  the  wood  for  the  village,  the  price  of  wood-chopping 
is  less,  or,  in  other  words,  wood-chopping  is  cheaper  to  the  whole  village  than  it  is 
when  the  inferior  grades  of  talent  have  to  be  brought  in;  because  he  does  more 
work  in  the  hour,  and  is  paid  no  more  in  any  event,  and  perhaps  less  for  it.  Con- 
sequently, again,  the  cost,  and  hence  the  price  of  cooking,  and  hence  again  of  board, 
is  all  less  to  every  consumer.  So  of  heating  rooms.  So  of  the  blacksmith's  work, 
the  shoemaker's  work,  and,  in  fine,  of  every  article  of  consumption  produced  in  the 
village;  because  the  manufacturers  of  all  these  articles,  while  engaged  in  the  man- 
ufactm-e,  consume  wood,  which  wood  has  to  be  chopped,  and  the  cost  of  which 
enters  into  the  cost  of  their  products ;  and  inasmuch  as  these  products  are  again 
sold  at  cost,  it  follows  that  the  price  of  every  article  manufactured  and  consumed 
is  reduced  by  the  superior  excellence  of  A  as  a  wood-chopper.  In  this  general  ad- 
vantage A  is  merely  a  common  participant  with  the  other  inhabitants;  but  then, 
in  turn,  the  same  principle  is  operating  to  place  each  of  those  others  in  that  occu- 
pation in  which  he  excels,  and  their  excellence  in  each  of  these  occupations,  re- 
spectively, is  operating  in  the  same  manner  to  reduce  the  price  of  every  other  article 
which  A,  as  well  as  others,  has  to  purchase.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  very  com- 
petition which  crowds  a  man  out  of  one  occupation  and  fills  it  with  another,  on 
account  of  his  superior  performance,  turns  just  as  much  to  the  benefit  of  the  man 
who  is  put  out  of  his  place,  as  it  does  to  that  of  the  man  who  is  installed  in  it,  all 
avenues  being  open  to  him  to  enter  other  pursuits,  and  there  being  labor  enough 
at  some  pursuit  for  all.  Hence  it  follows  that  under  the  .operation  of  the  Cost 
Peikciple  competition  is  rendered  cooperative,  and  that  cooperation  becomes  uni- 
versal instead  of  the  now  prevailing  antagonism  of  interests. 

210.  Let  us  take  an  additional  illustration.  In  wood-chopping  the  chief  point 
of  superiority  is  in  the  rapidity  of  performance.  In  other  occupations  it  is  dif- 
ferent. Take  the  case  of  a  clerk  or  copyist.  Here  there  are  three  or  four  points 
of  excellence,  —  speed,  elegance,  legibility,  and  accuracy.  All  this  does  not  in  the 
least  affect  the  principle.  The  competition  may  be  for  the  combination  of  the 
greatest  excellence  in  each  of  these  properties,  or  it  may  be,  in  case  there  is 
enough  of  the  business  to  divide  itself  into  branches,  for  the  particular  kind  of 
excellence  which  is  wanted  in  the  particular  branch.  There  is  some  copying  in 
which  speed  is  of  far  more  importance  than  elegance,  and  vice  versa.  It  is  still,  in 
the  same  manner,  to  the  mutual  advantage  of  all  that  those  persons  shall  be  em- 
ployed in  writing,  and  in  each  branch  of  writing,  who  are  most  expert  in  it,  be- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  Vl\) 

cause  that  reduces  to  everybody  the  price  of  makiug  out  titles  to  property,  keeping- 
records,  and  the  like,  and,  as  these  expenses  enter  again  into  the  cost,  and  conse- 
queutly  into  ih.Q price  of  houses  and  rent,  they  enter  again  into  the  price  of  board, 
and  so  of  every  article,  rendering  the  competition  again  cooperative  and  not 
antagonistic. 

211.  It  has  now,  I  think,  been  sufficiently  shown  that  competition,  under  this 
system  of  principles,  is  really  cooperative,  and  therefore  purely  beneficent,  pi-o- 
vided  the  two  conditions  above-stated  are  sufficiently  secured :  first,  that  the  avenues 
he  open  to  every  individual  to  enter  any  pursuit  according  to  his  tastes  without  arti- 
Jicial  obstacles;  and,  secondly,  that  there  be  at  all  times  labor  enough  for  all. 

Every  body  will,  therefore,  be  naturally  and  continually  aided,  from  the  common 
interest,  by  every  body  around  him,  in  placing  himself  in  that  position  where  he 
has  most  capacity  to  act,  which,  as  has  been  stated,  will,  in  the  end,  be  that  also,  if 
he  has  the  opportunity  to  try  himself  at  different  occupations,  for  which  he  will 
have  the  greatest  fondness  or  appetency.  The  avenues  to  employment  must  there- 
fore be  all  open  to  all  persons.  It  will  be  as  much  to  the  interest  of  all  that  they 
should  be  so,  as  it  is  now  their  interest  to  prevent  it.  Now  men  wish  to  monopo- 
lize certain  occupations  which  are  profitable,  because  it  is  to  their  pecuniary  ad- 
vantage to  do  so.  Then  men  can  have  no  other  motive  for  doing  so  than  their 
preference  for  exercising  these  occupations  themselves,  which  preference  must  be 
indulged,  if  indulged  at  all,  by  keeping  out  better  qualified  men,  adversely  to  their 
own  pecuniary  interests  and  the  interests  of  the  whole  community  around  them. 

212.  But  when  antagonistic  competition  is  out  of  the  way,  similar  industrial 
tastes  form  one  of  the  strongest  bonds  of  friendship.  In  a  community  constituted 
upon  these  principles,  to  keep  any  person  out  of  his  true  industrial  position,  by 

/conspiracy  of  any  sort,  would  be  both  a  dishonest  and  a  dishonorable  act.  Hence 
it  follows  that  pecuniary  interest,  natural  sympathy  with  those  of  similar  tastes, 
morality,  and  the  sense  of  honor  would  all  conspire  to  overcome  any  personal 
preference  for  a  particular  occupation  such  as  would  otherwise  exclude  better 
qualified  men.  This  combination  of  motives  will  be  sufficient  to  keep  a  faCir  and 
open  field  for  the  contest  of  merit  in  every  department  of  industry.  In  the  exist- 
ing social  disorder  men  are,  for  the  most  part,  thrust  by  chance  into  the  positions 
which  they  occupy  and  the  pursuits  which  they  follow.  Xobody  but  the  man  him- 
self feels  the  slightest  interest  in  his  being  in  that  place  in  which  he  can  make  the 
best  use  of  his  powers.  If  his  position  happens  to  be  a  fortunate  adaptation  to 
his  capacities,  the  gain  is  his  own.  It  is  monopolized  by  him  through  the  opera- 
tion of  the  value  principle,  or  the  benefit,  if  felt  at  all  by  the  public,  is  so  remotely 
felt  that  there  is  no  general  interest  manifested  in  the  matter,  and  it  is  accordingly 
left  entirely  to  chance.  Consequently,  men,  considered  merely  as  instruments  of 
production,  are  now  employed  as  much  at  random  as  the  implements  of  a  farm 
would  be,  if  a  savage,  smitten  with  a  taste  for  agriculture,  had  installed  himself 


130  Tlie  Science  of  Society. 

in  the  farm-house,  and  begun  by  using  the  harrow  for  a  hetchel,  the  hand-saw  for 
an  axe,  the  sickle  for  a  pruning-hook,  the  rake  for  a  hoe,  and  so  on.  Hence,  under 
the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle,  the  superior  excellence  of  each  individual  in 
that  occupation  in  which  he  excels  secures  his  employment  in  it,  both  because  that 
is  the  point  upon  which  competition  bears,  and  because  the  advantage  of  his  being 
employed  in  it  inures  directly  to  the  benefit  of  every  member  of  society  by  lower- 
ing the  price  of  the  article  which  he  produces,  rendering  every  one  anxious  to  see 
him  so  placed  and  ready  to  aid  him  by  every  means  to  place  himself  there. 

213.  It  has  been  stated,  and  partially  demonstrated,  that  the  idea  of  the  liabil- 
ity to  an  excess  of  human  labor  is  on  a  par  with  the  obsolete  notion  of  an  excess 
of  blood  in  the  human  system.  (161.)  With  the  prevalence  of  a  thorough  and 
varied  industrial  education  on  the  part  of  the  whole  people,  such  as  is  rendered 
possible  by  the  Cost  Principle,  but  the  details  of  which  do  not  belong  to  this 
volume;  with  the  removal  of  all  artificial  obstacles  to  the  free  entrance  by  all  upon 
all  industrial  pursuits;  with  adequate  arrangements  for  knowing  the  wants  of  all, 
and  for  distributing  the  products  of  all,  so  as  skilfully  to  subserve  those  wants 
through  a  scientific  adjustment  of  supply  to  demand;  with  that  complete  removal  of 
the  hindrances  to  the  free  interchange  of  commodities  now  occasioned  by  the  scar- 
city and  expensiveness  of  the  circulating  medium,  which  will  result  from  the  Labor 
jSTote  as  a  currency,  converting  all  labor  at  once  into  cash,  and  the  means  of  com- 
manding the  results  of  all  other  labor  the  world  over,  —  with  all  these  conditions, 
and  various  others  of  less  moment,  operated  by  these  principles,  the  infinitely 
varying  wants  of  humanity,  perpetually  expanding  under  culture,  together  with 
the  tendency  to  rest  and  simply  enjoy,  on  the  part  of  those  who  can,  fostered  by 
conscious  security;  of  condition,  may  be  implicitly  relied  upon  to  call  into  use  every 
degree  and  quality  of  human  labor  which  any  body  will  be  found  willing  to  ren- 
der, even  down  to  the  lowest  grades  of  skill,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  those 
who  thus  come  in  as  it  were  last  wiU  be  best  paid. 

214.  IV.  —  This  brings  us  to  the  next  point, — namely,  the  Economies  of  Co- 
operation and  of  the  Large  Scale.  Of  the  fii'st  branch  of  this  subject,  the  economies 
of  cooperation,  including  attraction,  it  cannot  be  necessary  that  much  should  be 
said.  Illustrations  have  already  been  given  of  the  waste  of  human  exertion  con- 
sequent upon  antagonism,  and  the  want  of  adaptation  between  the  man  and  his 
pursuit.  (151,  212.)  The  genius  of  any  reader  is  adequate  to  filling  up  the  hide- 
ous catalogue  to  repletion.  Equity  destroys  antagonism,  and  opens  the  way  to  the 
performance  of  every  function  in  the  most  economical  way. 

215.  The  economy  resulting  upon  the  performance  of  labor  upon  the  large 
instead  of  the  .small  scale  is  well  understood  and  highly  appreciated  in  our  present 
stage  of  civilization,  just  so  far  as  the  application  of  the  principle  chances  to  have 
been  made.  It  is  known,  for  example,  that  a  thousand  persons  can  be  profitably 
transported  at  a  trip,  upon  a  magnificent  steamboat,  from  New  York  to  Albany,  a 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  131 

distance  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles,  at  fifty  cents  for  each  person,  while  to 
run  the  same  boat,  or  any  boat  with  like  elegance  and  conveniences,  ten  miles,  for 
the  accommodation  of  one  individual,  .would  cost  several  hundred  dollars.  It  is 
not  yet  generally  understood  that  the  same  principle  applied  on  land  may,  and  will 
yet,  house  the  whole  population  in  palaces,  and  cause  the  masses  of  mankind  to 
enjoy  an  immunity  froai  want  heretofore  enjoyed  by  the  privileged  classes  only. 
The  glorious  truth  is  not  yet  generally  understood  that  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  may,  by  a  scientific  arrangement  of  the  appliances  for  the  productiou'and 
distribution  of  wealth,  be  rendered  infinitely  richer  than  any,  even  the  most  privi- 
leged individual,  is  now.  After  having  seen  that  kxcifer  matches  can  be  manufac- 
tured and  sold  at  a  penny  a  bunch  by  carrying  on  the  manufacture  as  a  business 
upon  the  large  scale,  the  absurdity  would  immediately  appear  —  the  waste  of 
human  exertion  would  be  too  obvious  to  escape  attention  —  if  every  housekeeper 
in  a  large  city  were  to  rise  each  successive  morning,  go  out  and  purchase  a  few 
splinters  of  pine,  with  a  little  pot  of  sulphur,  and  manufacture,  by  the  expenditure 
of  half  an  hour's  time,  from  one  to  a  half  dozen  matches  with  which  to  kindle  her 
fire  the  following  day.  It  is  not  so  readily  perceived,  however,  as  it  will  be  at  a 
future  day,  that  the  absm-dity  is  of  the  same  sort  when  seventy-five  thousand 
women  are  engaged  daily,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  twice  a  day,  in  boiling 
three  quarts  of  water  each  in  a  tea-kettle.  The  benefits  of  labor  saving  machinery 
are  derived  from  the  operation  of  this  principle,  the  essential  economy  of  the  large 
scale.  In  the  isolated  household  those  benefits  can  never  be  applied  to  cooking, 
washing,  ironing,  house-cleaning,  and  the  like.  Hence,  in  the  isolated  household, 
the  drudgery  to  which  woman  is  now  condemned  can  never  be  materially  allevi- 
ated. The  facility  with  which  these  tiresome  labors  are  now  performed  in  the  large 
American  hotels,  in  some  of  our  charitable  institutions,  and  even  in  prisons,  is  a 
standing  irony  upon  the  wretched  and  poverty-stricken  arrangements  of  our  do- 
mestic establishments.  Any  system  of  social  reorganization  which  should  involve 
the  necessik;y  of  individual  or  family  isolation  would  be,  therefore,  essentially 
faulty,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  every  individual  must  be  left  entirely  free  to  seek 
and  enjoy  as  much  solitude  or  privacy  as  he  or  she  may  choose,  assuming  for  them- 
selves the  additional  cost  of  such  indulgence. 

216.  While  the  public  at  large  have  not  pushed  their  investigations  into  the 
wonderful  results  which  are  yet  to  come  from  new  applications  of  this  principle  of 
economy,  —  in  the  immense  augmentation  of  wealth,  leisure,  luxury,  and  refine- 
ment to  be  participated  in  by  the  whole  people,  —  Social  Reformers  have  not  failed 
to  do  so.  Many  of  them  have  reveled  in  their  brilliant  imaginings  of  the  future 
until  they  have  become  maddened  at  the  stupidity  of  the  world,  and  denounce 
with  a  vehemence,  which  seems  insanity  to  their  less  appreciative  fellow-men,  the 
folly  and  absurdity  of  our  existing  social  arrangements.  The  folly  is,  howevei",  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  Conservative.     The  Socialist  has  proposed  no  method  of 


132 


The  Science  of  Society. 


realizing  the  splendid  social  revolution  which  he  advocates,  other  than  combina- 
tions, industrial  associations,  or  extensive  partnership  interests.  The  Conservative 
has  rightly  seen  in  such  arrangements  insuperable  difficulties  of  administration, 
and  a  ruinous  surrender  of  the  freedom  of  the  individual.  The  demand  is  now 
urgent  for  a  solution  of  this  embroglio.  The  Cost  Principle  furnishes  that  solution 
in  that  method  of  its  operation  which  I  am  about  to  specify.  Herein,  then,  is  the 
conciliation  of  the  seemingly  conflicting  truths  of  Socialism  and  Conservatism. 

217.  It  has  been  already  stated  that  the  individualization  or  disconnection  of 
interests  insisted  upon  by  us  has  in  it  none  of  the  features  of  isolation,  —  that 
there  is,  in  fine,  in  these  principles,  nothing  adverse  to  the  largest  enterprises, 
and  the  most  thorough  organization  in  every  department  of  business.  The  discon- 
nection relates  to  the  methods  of  ownership  and  administration,  not  to  the  aggregation 
of  persons.  It  is  adverse  alone  to  sinking  the  distinction  or  blending  the  lines  of 
individual  property,  but  in  no  manner  to  the  closest  association,  the  most  intimate 
relations,  and  the  most  effective  cooperation  between  the  owners  of  the  interests 
thus  sharply  defined.  We  affirm,  indeed,  that  it  is  only  out  of  this  prior  and  con- 
tinuous rigid  ascertainment  of  rights  that  mutual  harmony  and  beneficial  co- 

4—  )  operation  can  ever  accrue,  i  To  obliterate  the  lines  of  individual  property^  and 
administration  is  always  and  everywhere  to  plunge  into  utter  and  hopeless  confu- 
sion. Such  is  the  sin  of/Commmiisnij  To  interlock  and  combine  the  several  in- 
terests of  a  community  so  that  the  wiU  of  one  party,  in  the  management  of  his 
own,  can  be  overborne  by  the  vfill  of  another  individual,  or  any  majority  of  indi- 
viduals in  the  world,  or  his  conduct  in  the  administration  of  that  which  is  his 
subjected  to  the  authorized  criticism  of  others,  is  a  species  of  multiplication  in 

t'hich  confusion  and  despotism  are  the  factors,  and  the  natural  and  inevitable 
roduct,  in  all  delicately  constituted  and  well-developed  minds,  abhorrence  and 
■lisgust.     Such  is  the  sin  of  all  partnerships.  Trades'  Associations,  and  Fourieristic 
iPhalansterian  joint-stock  arrangements  whatsoever. 

218.  Let  it  be  observed  distinctly,  however,  that  in  none  of  these  proposed  re- 
organizations of  society  is  the  fallacy  to  be  found  in  the  magnificent  amplitude  of 
dimensions,  the  complex  variety  of  development,  the  intimate  societary  life,  the 
general  prevalence  of  wealth,  luxury,  and  refinement,  nor  in  the  indispensable 
postulatum  of  universal  cooperation.  All  this,  and  more,  lies  hid  in  the  womb  of 
time,  and  the  hour  of  parturition  is  at  hand.  The  futility  of  all  these  schemes  of 
social  regeneration  is  to  be  found  alone  in  the  want  of  individualization'  as  the 
starting  point,  the  perpetual  accompaniment,  and  the  final  development  of  the 
movement,  and  the  failm-e  to  discover  that  jin.  harmonious  juxtaposition  with  the 
complete  severance  and  apparent  opposition  of  individual  interests  lies  the  most 
liberal,  perfect,  and  all-pervading  system  of  mutual  cooperation,]  developed  through 
a  process  almost  ridiculously  simple, — the  mere  cessation~of  mutual  robbeiy 
by  tlie  erection  and  observance  of  a  scientific  measure  of  price  and  standai'd  of 
equivalents. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  133 

219.  A  single  illustration  will  render  clear  the  way  in  which,  out  of  the  limita- 
tion of  all  price  to  the  mere  cost  of  performance  and  product  ion,  grows  the  ten- 
dency to  aggregation,  and  the  doing  of  all  work  upon  the  large,  and  thereby  upon 
the  economical  scale, — but  loithout  partnership  interest  or  Combination  in  the  technical 
sense  of  that  term,  as  differing  from  Cooperation.  (49,  50 .)  Take  the  case  of  an 
Eating-House  conducted  upon  the  Cost  Principle.  If  fifty,  one  hundred,  or  five 
hundred  persons  eat  at  the  same  establishment,  the  economy  is  immense  over  pro- 
viding the  same  number  of  people  with  the  same  style  of  living  in  ten,  twenty,  or 
one  hundred  separate  establishments.  Hence  the  large  and  elegant  eating  saloon, 
with  cleanliness,  order,  artistic  skill,  and  abundance,  in  the  preparation  of  food,  is 
a  cheaper  arrangement  than  the  meagre  and  ill-conditioned  private  table.  The 
general  facts  in  this  respect  are  too  well  known  to  require  to  be  specifically  estab- 
lished. In  the  Eating-House,  as  it  now  exists  in  large  cities,  the  economy  here 
spoken  of  is  actually  secured,  —  that  is,  each  boarder  is  fed  at  less  actual  cost  than 
he  could  be  in  the  isolated  household;  but  the  saving  thus  effected  does  not  go 
into  the  pocket  of  the  boarder,  nor  accrue  in  any  manner  to  his  benefit.  On  the 
contrary,  he  is  orclio^rily  compelled  to  pay  more  than  it  would  cost  him  to  supply 
himself  at  home.  Hence,  there  is  no  general  and  controlling  influence  of  the 
eating-house  system  to  call  the  population  out  of  their  private  establishments  and 
induce  them  to  live  upon  the  large  scale,  at  public  saloons.  There  are  conveniences 
and  agreeable  features  in  that  mode  of  life  which  address  themselves  to  certain 
classes  of  persons,  bachelors  with  ample  means,  merchants  whose  business  is  at  a 
distance  from  their  homes,  travelers,  temporary  citizens,  etc.,  which  overbalance 
the  repulsion  of  enhanced  price,  and  supply  these  establishments  with  a  given 
amount  of  custom.  They  fail,  however,  on  account  of  that  enhanced  price,  to 
break  up,  as  they  would  inevitably  do  if  the  price  were  much  less  instead  of 
greater,  the  isolated  household  system  of  cookery,  which  is  now  one  of  the  primary 
causes  of  the  unmitigated  drudgery  and  undevelopment  of  the  female  sex. 

220.  As  stated,  then,  the  saving  from  the  large  scale  now  actually  takes  place, 
as  it  would  do  under  the  true  system  of  administration ;  but,  instead  of  going  to 
the  benefit  of  the  boarders  of  the  establishment,  it  goes  first  in  the  form  of  profits 
to  the  keeper  of  the  house,  then  in  the  form  of  rent  from  him  to  the  party  wlio 
owns  the  house,  and,  finally,  it  is  probable,  in  the  form  of  interest  from  the  owner 
of  the  premises  to  the  money-lender,  who  has  loaned  the  capital  to  construct  it, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  operation  of  the  principle  is  restricted,  and  the  amount 
of  the  saving  diminished,  by  the  causes  which  prevent  the  population  generally 
from  resorting  to  such  establishments.  Under  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle 
all  this  is  reversed.  Xobody  stands  between  the  boarder  and  the  saving  which 
grows  naturally  out  of  the  economical  tendency  of  the  large  scale.  Nobody  re- 
ceives the  benefit  but  himself.  The  keeper  of  the  house  makes  no  profit,  but  is 
paid  simply  an  equivalent  for  his  labor,  according  to  its  degree  of  burdensomeness 


^ 


134  The  Science  of  Society. 

or  repugnance, — less,  if  it  is  less  repugnant,  than  an  attendant  on  the  tables,  or  a 
cook  in  the  kitchen.  The  owner  of  the  house  receives  no  rent,  in  the  nature  of 
profit,  but  merely  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  premises,  —  the  cost  of  maintaining  them 
in  an  equally  good  condition  (241) ;  and,  finally,  there  is  no  money-lender,  levying 
an  additional  contribution  for  the  supply  of  a  circulating  medium  so  scarce  and  ex- 
pensive as  to  be  capable  of  being  monopolized.  Hence,  whoever  lives  at  an  Eating- 
House  managed  upon  the  Cost  Principle  lives  either  at  a  much  cheaper  rate  than 
he  can  live  in  a  private  way,  or  else  in  a  much  better  style,  or  else  with  both  of 
these  elements  of  attraction  combined.  Hence,  again,  there  is  a  potent  influence 
under  that  principle,  operating  upon  the  whole  community  to  di-aw  them  out  of 
their  present  solitai'y  and  poverty-stricken  household  arrangements  into  a  larger 
sphere  of  elegance,  comfort,  and  refinement,  while  at  the  same  time  their  full  free- 
dom is  preserved  to  remain  as  they  are,  at  their  own  cost.  The  seeds  of  a  great 
social  revolution  are  planted,  while  no  prejudice  is  shocked.  There  is  no  pledge 
demanded,  no  premeditated  concert  of  action,  no  sudden  overturn  or  derangement 
of  social  habits,  no  enforced  conformity,  no  authorized  espionage  and  criticism. 
The  change  is  effected  gently,  gradually,  unobtrusively,  and  considerately  toward 
all  existing  habits  and  feelings. 

221.  Nor  is  the  social  revolution  thus  foreshadowed  less  radical  and  entire  than 
that  which  is  aspired  after  by  the  most  advanced  of  Social  Reformers.  It  differs 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  natural  growth  from  simple  roots  implanted  in  the  common 
understanding,  in  the  form  of  principles  or  mere  suggestions  of  honesty,  —  not  a 
splendid  and  complicated  a  priori  arrangement  of  details  as  a  great  work  of  art. 
■T~  The  same  principle  here  illustrated  with  reference  to  the  Eating-House  applies  of 
com'se  to  the  Public  Wash-House,  to  the  Infant  School,  or  Common  Xursery  for 
the  professional  rearing,  training,  and  development  of  children,  and  to  every  other 
advantageous  arrangement  of  societary  life.  Relieved  of  the  burden  of  cooking, 
washing,  and  nursing,  except  as  her  tastes  lead  her  to  participate  in  one  or  other 
of  these  pursuits  professionally,  it  becomes  competent  to  woman  to  elect  and  vary 
her  career  in  life  with  as  much  freedom  as  man.  Then,  and  never  until  then,  can 
woman  become  an  Individual  herself,  instead  of  a  mere  hanger-on  upon  the  des- 
tinies of  another.  Then,  and  not  until  then,  can  the  intellect  of  the  woman  be 
developed  so  as  to  form  the  appropriate  coimterpoise  to  her  affectionate  nature. 
There  is  not,  in  our  existing  society,  one  woman  in  a  hundred  who  knows  as  much 
at  the  age  of  forty  as  she  knew  at  twenty.  Confined,  for  the  most  part,  to  the 
same  narrow  circle  of  household  affairs,  with  children,  nurses,  and  housemaids  as 
her  associates,  she  shrinks  mentally  instead  of  expanding,  and  comes  finally  to 
nauseate,  and  to  object  with  sickly  fastidiousness  to  those  changes  in  her  condition 
which  are  essential  to  her  emancipation.  Hence  it  is  only  in  the  rare  case  of  highly 
endowed  and  well-developed  womanhood  that  the  Social  Reformer  meets  the  hearty 
sympathy  of  the  sex  in  those  plans  of  domestic  amelioration  which  are  indispens- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  135 

able  to  the  assumption  by  her  of  that  rank  in  the  social  hierarchy  for  which  nature 
has  disposed  her,  and  which,  despite  of  herself,  as  it  were,  she  is  destined  to  attain.  — 

222.  Again,  when  these  several  domestic  functions  are  performed  severally  up-  -j_ 
on  the  large  scale,  additional  conveniences  will  be  found  to  arise  from  combining 
the  Eating-House,  the  Laundry,  the  Nursery,  the  Lying-in  Department,  etc.,  etc., 

in  one  unitarj'  edifice,  and  conducting  the  whole  upon  a  plan  not  inferior,  perhaps, 
in  magnificence  and  extent  to  the  Phalansterian  order  of  Fourier.  It  is  not  my  .— - 
purpose  to  trace  out  these  ulterior  developments  of  the  principle.  The  social  phi- 
losopher will,  from  this  point,  do  that  for  himself.  However  magnificent  may  be 
the  scale  upon  which  the  social  order,  growing  out  of  these  principles,  shall  finally 
adjust  itself,  there  wUl  be  in  it  always  the  marked  distinction  from  every  Social 
Reform  heretofore  proposed,  —  that  every  grand  public  undertaking,  whether  it  be 
an  Eating  Establishment  to  accommodate  several  hundred  persons  or  families,  a 
Hospital,  a  Public  Laundry,  a  Hotel  for  the  accommodation  of  travelers,  a  Factory, 
a  huge  Workshop,  a  Plantation,  the  complicated  arrangements  of  transportation 
and  navigation,  or,  finally,  the  Phalanstery  itself,  combining  every  convenience  '^ 
and  all  the  functions  of  social  life  on  the  most  extended  scale,  will  still  be  a  strictly 
individual  enterprise,  the[outbirth  of  the  genius  and  activity  of  a  single  mind.  '  ■ 
Hundreds  of  men  and  women  may  be  engaged  in  the  administration,  some  of  whom 
will  be  at  the  head  of  the  various  departments,  but  all  of  them[rigidly  subordinate 
to  the  grand  design  of  the  projector,  who  will  be  the  despot  of  his  own  dominions, 
exercising,  nevertheless,  a  beneficent  despotism,  wherein  the  highest  and  best  ex- 
pression of  himself,  wrought  out  in  his  work,  redounds  equally  to  the  goodof  all 
others  who  are  related  in  any  manner  to  the  transaction,  —  a  self-electe'd  governor 
of  mankind,  by  the  divine  right  of  genius  or  supereminent  ability  to  excogitate 
and  perforru^  At  the  same  time,  whoever  evinces  the  higher  grades  of  inventive 
and  organizing  talent  will  have  the  command  freely  of  the  requisite  capital  to  aid 
the  execution  of  his  designs,  limited  only  by  the  aggregate  amount  of  surplus  cap- 
ital in  the  community  as  compared  with  the  number  of  such  beneficent  enterprises 
on  foot.  This  effect  will  result  from  the  fact  that,  under  the  operation  of  the  Cost 
Principle,  capital  of  itself  earns  nothing,  and  hence  that  all  persons  in  the  com- 
munity who  have  surplus  accumulations  of  wealth  will  prefer  that  such  accumula- 
tions shall  be  intrusted  to,  and  be  administered  by,  those  persons  who  demonstrate 
the  greatest  capacity  for  doing  so,  in  that  way  which  will  contribute  most  to  the 
public  welfare;  a  benefit  in  which  the  owners  of  such  capital  will  participate  along 
with  the  whole  public,  —  in  addition  to  their  right  to  withdraw  their  investments 
in  such  installments  as  they  may  require  for  their  own  use.  The  ideas  involved 
in  this  paragraph  will  be  further  developed  in  the  next  chapter,  in  treating  of  Cap- 
ital and  tlie  "Wages  System."  (230,  2i9.) 

223.  It  follows,  then,  that  by  the  simple  operation  of  Equity  attractive  industry 
is  secured,  cooperation  is  rendered  beneficent  instead  of  destructive,  all  the  eco- 


136  The  Science  of  Society. 

iioiiiies  are  effected,  and  this  still  with  a  complete  preservation,  on  all  hands,  of 
Individuality  and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual.  Cooperation  is  rendered  uni- 
versal by  the  same  means,  speculation  is  banished,  antagonisms  of  all  sorts  are 
neutralized,  a  complete  Adaptation  of  Supply  to  Demand  is  for  the  first  time  in 
the  world  rendered  practicable,  and  mankind  enter  upon  a  career  of  harmony,  de- 
velopment, and  happiness  which  the  experience  of  all  past  ages  has  been  but  a 
painful  preparation  to  enjoy  by  strong  contrast,  as  dark  shadows  relieve  the  lights 
upon  the  canvas  of  the  painter.  Let  the  man  or  the  woman  who  desires  to  parti- 
cipate in  the  work  of  instaUing  the  Eeign  of  Harmony  put  his  or  her  hand  to  the 
work. 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  137 


CHAPTER  Vn. 


CAPITAL,  RENT,  INTEREST,  WAGES,  MACHINERY,  ETC. 

224.  It  remains  to  point  out  more  specifically  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Princi- 
ple upon  Capital,  Rent,  Interest,  Wages,  and  Machinery,  with  the  true  relations  of 
these  matters  to  labor.  Serious  questions  have  been  raised,  in  the  recent  discus- 
sions upon  reform,  upon  all  of  these  subjects,  and  innumerable  difficulties  have 
been  felt  in  arriving  at  any  satisfactory  adjustment  of  the  points  at  issue.  It  has 
been  seen  that  capital  or  wealth  already  accumulated  is  one  element  iu  the  accu- 
mulation of  additional  wealth,  and  hence  it  has  appeared  to  be  equitable  that  such 
capital,  or  rather  the  parties  to  whom  such  accumulated  wealth  pertained,  should 
have  some  share  in  the  new  accumulations,  in  the  production  of  which  their  capital 
has  been  instrumental.  In  other  words,  it  has  been  seen  that  wealth  loaned  to  and 
employed  by  another  is  a  real  benefit  to  that  other,  and  the  question  is  forcibly 
asked,  why,  then,  should  not  the  borrower,  in  justice,  remunerate  the  lender  to  the 
extent  of  the  benefit  received,  or,  at  least,  to  the  extent  of  some  part  of  that  bene- 
fit? This  question  has  never  been  satisfactorily  answered,  and  can  never  be  an- 
swered so  long  as  value,  or  benefit  conferred,  is  recognized  as  a  basis  for  remuneration 
or  price.  But  we  have  seen  that  price  rests,  according  to  the  true  prmciples  of 
science,  wholly  upon  a  different  basis,  and  that  benefit  conferred  is  no  ground  of 
claim  whatsoever. 

225.  As  this  distinction  between  the  true  and  the  false  basis  of  price  is  one  of 
great  importance  to  the  solution  of  the  questions  now  about  to  be  treated  of,  I 
shall  be  pardoned  for  stating  it  again,  and,  if  possible,  rendering  it  still  more  ob- 
vious. All  commerce  has  heretofore  been  conducted  upon  the  idea  of  an  exchange 
of  equivalent  benefits.  This  is  what  has  been  denominated  the  Value  Principle, 
which  has  been  shown,  as  well  by  an  analysis  of  the  principle  itself  as  by  the  per- 
nicious consequences  resulting  from  its  operation,  to  be  essentially  erroneous.  The 
basis  principle  of  true  commerce  is,  on  the  contrary,  an  exchange  of  equivalent  bur- 
dens. No  amount  of  benefit  conferred  by  one  human  being  upon  another  gives 
the  slightest  title  to  remuneration,  provided  the  conferring  of  such  benefit  has  cost 
nothing  to  the  party  conferring  it.  To  impart  pleasure,  and  to  shed  an  atmosphei-e 
of  happiness  in  every  direction,  is  the  true  life  of  all  refined  and  well-developed 
humanity.  To  levy  tribute  as  a  consideration  for  the  exercise  of  one's  own  higher 
nature  is  to  profane  the  most  sacred  things.  It  is  true  that  the  conferring  of  bene- 
fits does,  by  a  natural  effect,  quicken  the  tendency  to  confer  benefits  in  return,  and 


138  The  Science  of  Society. 

in  this  manner  to  produce  recii^rocity ;  but  that  tendency  is  stronger  in  proportion  to 
the  absence  of  all  claim  to  such  reciprocity.  Price,  relating  solely  to  what  can  be  ap- 
propriately claimed,  has,  then,  no  basis  in  benefit  conferred.  Hence,  there  is  no 
justification  whatever  for  interest  or  rent  on  capital  in  the  fact  that  the  loan  of 
capital  confers  a  benefit  upon  the  borrower  which  he  would  not  otherwise  enjoy. 
'  Whatever  basis  there  may  be, — and  we  shall  see,  presently,  that  there  is  a  basis 
for  a  price,  in  some  cases,  for  the  use  of  capital, — it  is  not  the  benefit  conferred, 
and  the  price  must  not  be  measured  in  any  manner  whatsoever  by  the  amount  of 
that  benefit. 

226.  Another  argument  is  used  on  behalf  of  those  who  defend  the  participation 
of  capital  in  the  results  of  labor,  with  no  clear  distinction,  apparently,  between  it 
and  the  one  above  stated,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  employ  it.  It  is  said  that,  if 
I  have  property  which  I  have  accumulated  by  my  labor,  and  you  desire  the  use  of 
it  to  enable  you  to  accumulate  property  for  yourself  more  rapidly  than  you  could 
otherwise  do,  and  I  forego  the  use  of  it  for  your  sake,  and  to  my  own  deprivation, 

j/-  that  I  ought  to  be  repaid  for  the  sacrifice  that  I  make.  This  position  is  rigidly 
correct.  It  is  merely  one  form  of  statement  of  the  Cost  Principle  itself.  It  is  a 
statement  that  the  sacrifice  made,  the  burden  endured,  or  the  i-epugnance  overcome 
on  the  part  of  the  party  making  the  loan,  is  a  basis  of  price.  It  should  be  said,  to 
make  the  statement  complete,  that  such  is  the  basis,  and  the  only  basis  of  price,  so 
as  to  exclude  entirely  the  mixed  consideration  of  sacrifice  endured  by  the  one  party 
and  benefit  conferred  upon  the  other.  All  just  price  is  in  the  nature  of  indemnijica- 
t ion  for  damages.  If  no  damage  is  incurred,  no  matter  how  enormous  the  benefit 
conferred,  there  can  be  no  just  price,  and,  if  the  damage  be  ten  times  the  amount 
of  the  benefit,  the  extent  of  the  damage  is  nevertheless  the  measure  of  the  price. 
Hence,  the  Cost  Principle  does  not  arbitrarily  decide  that  there  shall  be  no  price 
for  the  use  of  capital,  or  even  that  the  price  shall  be  extremely  low.  It  simply  de- 
termines when  a  price  is  allowable,  and  furnishes  the  standard  by  which  the  legiti- 
mate amount  of  the  price  may  be  ascertained.  It  sides  with  neither  of  the 
combatants  upon  the  question,  as  the  question  has  heretofore  been  discussed,  but 
comes  in  between  them  and  points  out  a  new  line  of  demarkation  between  the 
right  and  the  wrong  of  the  matter. 

227.  This  new  line  of  demarkation  runs  with  the  amount  of  sacrifice  which  the 
y    owner  and  lender  of  capital  undergoes  in  depriving  himself  temporarily  of  the  use 

of  it,  no  regard  whatever  l)eing  had  to  the  amount  of  benefit  which  the  borrower 
may  derive  from  it.  Hence  it  follows  that  all  surplus  capital — capital  which  the 
present  convenience  of  the  owner  does  not  require  for  use  or  consumption,  and 
which  can  be  intrusted  to  the  administration  of  another  without  more  risk  than 
would  be  incurred  by  retaining  it  in  the  custody  of  the  owner  (230) — will  be  open 
to  loan,  without  price  in  the  form  of  interest  or  rent.  The  element  of  risk  is  an- 
P"       other  ground  upon  which  interest  is  defended.     Just  so  far  as  augmented  risk  is 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  139 

actually  iucurred  by  a  loau,  it  is,  in  fact,  a  legitimate  element  of  price,  being  part 
of  the  cost  or  burden  imposed  upon  the  lender.  It  will  be  shown,  however,  pre- 
sently, that  by  the  operation  of  these  principles  risk  will  be  reduced  to  a  miuimum, 
—  to  those  inevitable,  possible  contingencies  which  may  attach  to  the  existence  of 
wealth  as  well  in  the  hands  of  the  owner  as  anywhere  else.  Hence  all  capital 
which  is  a  positive  surplus  over  present  necessities  will  be  loaned — the  moral  and 
pecuniary  security  being  ample — without  price.  (230.)     \r 

'228.  But  then  the  objection  arises  that  the  real  sacrifice  made  by  the.  lender  in 
depriving  himself  of  the  use  of  capital,  as  of  money,  for  example,  under  the  exist- 
ing regime,  is  precisely  measured  by  the  amount  of  interest  which  can  be  obtained 
for  it  in  the  market;  since  by  lending  it  without  interest  he  is  surrendering  the  op- 
portunity to  accimiulate  that  amount,  and  hence  that  the  new  rule  comes  back 
practically  to  the  same  thing  as  the  old  one.  The  fallacy  of  this  objection  would 
be  quite  obvious  except  for  the  perversion  of  the  moral  sense  induced  by  the  cor- 
rupting influence  of  the  system  in  which  we  live.  As  it  is,  it  may  be  necessary  to 
probe  it  and  expose  it.  It  can  be  no  sacrifice,  it  is  no  burden,  it  costs  nothing,  to 
the  honest  man,  to  surrender  the  opportunity  which  the  wants  of  others  confer  upon 
him  to  force  them  to  give  to  him  what  he  is  not  entitled  to  receive.  It  has  been 
shown  that  he  is  entitled  to  receive  nothing  upon  the  ground  of  their  wants,  or  the 
consequent  benefit  or  relief  which  the  loan  will  confer.  The  argument  is  this:  I 
recognize  that,  in  a  transaction  which  I  am  about  to  have  with  j'^ou,  the  limits  of 
my  just  demand  against  you  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  amounts  and  claims 
which  I  am  about  to  surrender;  but  then  I  find  that  among  other  things  I  am 
about  to  surrender  an  opportunity  which  circumstances  have  placed  in  my  power 
to  cheat  you  out  of  a  thousand  pounds,  and  I  wish  thereupon  to  augment  my  de- 
mand by  that  amount.  Do  you  not  perceive  that  I  immediately  forfeit  all  title  to 
the  appellation  of  an  honest  man?  Do  you  not  perceive  that  the  case  is  the  same, 
if  I  first  recognize  that  the  price  I  can  justly  charge  you  for  the  use  of  capital  is 
the  sacrifice  which  it  costs  me  to  part  wdth  it,  and  I  then  propose  to  include  in  that 
sacrifice  the  chance  of  getting  from  some  one  else  more  than  the  just  price? 

229.  Risk  is  stated  by  all  writers  on  the  subject  as  one  of  the  groimds  on  which 
Interest  or  Rent  on  Capital  rests,  and  I  have  admitted  that  it  is  a  good  ground  of 
price  just  so  far  as  the  risk  is  augmented  by  the  loan.  Even  in  the  existing  order 
of  society,  however,  it  frequently  happens  that  capital  invested  in  the  hands  of  an- 
other party  is  rendered  quite  as  secure  as  it  would  be  in  the  custody  of  the  owner. 
It  is  possible,  by  bond  and  mortgage  on  real  estate,  for  example,  with  an  ample 
margin  of  value,  to  render  the  risk  positively  less  than  would  be  incurred  by  the 
owner  in  hoarding  his  wealth  in  his  own  strong  box,  or  entrusting  it  to  his  banker. 
The  risks  of  losing  property  are  in  some  respects  the  same  whether  the  owner  re- 
tains it  himself  or  permits  it  to  go  out  of  his  hands;  in  other  respects  the  risk  is 
greatly  enhanced,  in  the  present  state  of  things,  by  ceasing  to  guard  it  personally. 


140  The  Science  of  Society. 

Some  risks,  from  the  accidents  of  nature,  are  perhaps  such  that  they  can  never  be 
foreseen  and  guarded  against  by  any  arrangements  whatever,  let  the  property  be 
where  it  may.  These,  if  there  are  such,  make  no  basis  of  interest  or  rent  on  the 
capital  when  loaned,  as  it  is  a  cost  which  the  owner  of  the  property  must  endure 
in  any  event.  Other  risks,  dependent  on  the  accidents  of  nature,  are  capable  of 
being  estimated  with  sufficient  precision  to  be  covered  by  insurance.  These  risks 
again  furnish  no  basis  of  interest  or  rent  to  be  charged  on  the  borrower,  unless  the 
property  is  going  to  be  employed  in  a  more  hazardous  way.  If  so,  the  augmented 
rate  of  insurance  falls  equitably  upon  the  borrower,  and  marks  precisely  the  extent 
to  which  this  element  is  the  basis  of  price.  Finally,  risks  are  incun-ed,  now,  by 
the  chances  of  speculation  which  attend  nearly  evei-y  use  of  capital,  and  by  the 
prevailing  habits  of  dishonesty  which  grow  out  of  speculation,  the  want  of  any 
known  standard  of  honesty,  the  general  prevalence  of  poverty,  distress,  and  com- 
mercial revulsions,  together  with  the  consequent  want  of  security  of  condition,  — 
in  other  words,  out  of  the  want  of  any  knowledge  in  the  public  mind  of  what 
honesty  is,  and  the  want  of  such  conditions  of  the  individual  as  render  honesty 
possible.  Under  the  operation  of  the  Cost  Principle  speculation  is  extinguished, 
and  the  dishonesty  which  grows  out  of  that  root  is  extinguished  along  with  it. 
Poverty,  pecuniary  distress,  and  commercial  revulsions  will  cease,  and  a  general 
security  of  condition  will  be  achieved ;  and  along  with  these  changes  will  cease  the 
temptations  and  constraint  of  circumstances,  which  force  men  now  into  dishonest 
practices,  against  the  protest  of  their  consciences,  and  to  the  absolute  loathing  of 
the  real  man  within.  An  exact  standard  of  honesty  will  exist  in  the  mind  of  every 
one.  Public  sentiment  will  become  as  stringent  in  relation  to  the  right  and  wrong 
of  every  commercial  transaction  as  it  is  now  in  regard  to  bribe-taking  and  perjury ; 
and,  finally,  every  man,  woman,  and  child  will  be  a  banker,  with  a  reputation  to 
preserve  untarnished,  as  the  sole  condition  of  enjoying  merely  commercial  advan- 
tages and  facilities,  worth  more  than  the  most  unlimited  credit  in  the  existing 
order  of  commercial  affairs.  Dishonesty,  therefore,  will  cease  along  with  the  ces- 
sation of  speculation  or  profit-making,  and  with  the  inauguration  of  these  new 
principles  of  society.  It  is  a  fruit  which  grows  upon  the  tree  which  is  now  cul- 
tivated, not  upon  that  which  we  are  proposing  to  plant. 

230.  It  follows  from  these  considerations  that  all  that  class  of  risks  —  now  by 
far  the  most  considerable — which  arise  out  of  the  contingencies  of  speculative 
commerce  and  the  prevalent  dishonesty  of  commercial  nations  disappear  so  soon  as 
true  principles  are  in  operation.  Hence  they  cease  to  be  taken  into  account  as  a 
basis  of  interest  or  rent  on  capital.  The  lender  lends  with  entire  confidence,  rest- 
ing upon  the  security  of  the  property  loaned, — which  will  remain  in  some  form  al- 
ways on  hand  to  meet  his  demand,  —  the  actual  risks  from  the  accidents -of  nature 
being  covered,  so  far  as  practicable,  by  insurance.  He  recognizes  in  principle  that 
his  capital  earns  nothing;   hence,  if  it  is  surplus  with  him,  —  that  is,  if  he  desires 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  141 

to  make  no  other  present  use  of  it  than  merely  to  preserve  it, — it  becomes  at  first 
immaterial  to  him  whether  it  remains  in  his  own  custody  or  in  the  custody  of  a 
friend,  while,  in  the  second  place,  it  is  a  relief  to  him  to  be  freed  from  its  admin- 
istration in  the  intermediate  time;  and,  finally,  he  will  be,  along  with  all  the  rest 
of  the  community,  a  participant  in  the  benefits  which  will  result  to  the  whole  pub- 
lic from  having  it  occupied  in  any  enterprise  conducted  upon  the  Cost  Principle. 
Hence  again  it  follows,  as  stated  in  the  preceding  chapter  (222),  that  "whoever 
evinces  the  highest  grades  of  inventing  and  organizing  talent  wiU  have  the  com- 
mand, freely,  of  the  requisite  capital  to  aid  the  execution  of  his  designs,  limited 
only  by  the  aggregate  amount  of  surplus  capital  in  the  community,  as  compared 
with  the  nmuber  of  such  beneficent  enterprises  on  foot." 

231.  It  is  nevertheless  true  that  under  the  operation  of  these  principles  there 
are  circumstances  in  which  the  use  of  capital  is  fairly  a  matter  of  price.  Such  is 
the  case  whenever  the  capital  loaned  is  not  a  surplus  above  present  needs,  and 
when,  consequently,  to  make  the  loan  at  all  is  to  postpone  one's  own  present  en- 
joyment, and  hence  to  endure  a  sacrifice,  —  to  assume  cost.  It  is  the  same  with 
labor  done  for  another  at  a  time  when  it  is  an  inconvenience  to  perform  it.  To 
render  this  distinction,  and  also  the  difference  between  the  operation  of  true  prin- 
ciples and  of  the  present  false  principles,  more  obvious,  let  us  assume  an  illustrative 
case. 

Suppose  twenty  families  of  emigrants  landing  in  Oregon.  All  need  houses 
forthwith.  But  houses  for  all  cannot  be  built  at  once.  It  is  assumed,  now,  that  it 
is  morally  and  economically  right  that  those  who  are  willing  to  give  the  largest 
amount  of  their  present  wealth  or  future  labor  for  the  assistance  of  the  others 
should  have  their  houses  built  first,  that  the  enhancement  of  price  in  consideration 
of  credit  is  in  the  nature  of  interest,  and  hence  that  interest  is  right. 

The  answer  is  this:  Cost  has  its  positive  and  negative  aspect.  It  includes,  1. 
Active  performance  of  painful  labor ;  2.  "-Passive  suffering,  sacrifice,  deprivation, 
or  endurance.  Under  this  second  head  I  legitimately  charge  a  price  for  the  sur- 
render of  the  use  of  capital  (my  labor  being  also  capital),  at  any  time  when  it 
would  be  really  advantageous  to  me  to  use  it  for  myself  y  but  the  exact  measure  of 
the  price  of  such  surrender  is  the  amount  of  that  sacrifice, — not  the  amount  of  the 
benefit  which  I  shall  confer  on  another  by  making  it.  It  is  legitimate  that  the 
party  who  postpones  building  at  a  sacrifice  to  himself  for  the  accommodation  of 
another  shall  charge  an  enhanced  price.  So  far  we  seem  to  go  toward  admitting 
the  basis  of  interest,  which  is  assumed.  This  enhancement  of  price  is  entirely  dif- 
ferent, however,  from  interest  on  money,  as  now  in  use.  Such  as  it  is,  it  is  not 
only  entirely  harmonious  with,  but  is  absolutely  demanded  by,  the  Cost  Principle, 
the  foundation  of  the  charge  being  the  cost  or  pain  endured. 

232.  You  are  right  in  assuming  that,  in  the  case  put,  an  enhanced  piice  should 
be  charged.     You  are  wrong  in  assuming  that  the  measure  of  that  enhanced  price 


142  The  Science  of  Society. 

is  the  amount  of  present  wealth  or  future  labor  which  the  several  parties  are  respec- 
tively willing  to  give  to  obtain  the  accommodation.  Those  parties  will  be  willing 
to  give  most  who  stand  most  in  want  of  shelter ;  in  other  words,  those  who  would 
suffer  most  from  being  unhoused ;  in  other  words,  again,  the  weak  and  feeble,  the 
invalid,  the  unprotected  women  and  children.  They  are  willing  to  give  or  promise 
most,  because  their  wants  are  greatest;  in  other  words,  because  the  value  to  them 
of  comfortable  shelter  is  greater  than  it  is  to  the  robust  and  endurhig.  This,  then, 
is  the  value  principle,  or  the  supply-aud-demand  principle,  as  it  is  sometimes  called, 
—  the  false  principle  of  commerce  which  now  prevails, — the  antipodes  of  the  Cost 
Principle, — the  true  principle  of  commerce,  which  will  prevail  under  the  reign  of 
Equity. 

233.  Let  us  see  now  the  application  of  the  Cost  Principle  to  the  case  in  hand. 
An  enhanced  price  is  to  be  charged  by  those  who  postpone  their  own  accommoda- 
tion, but  that  enhancement  is  measured  by  the  amount  of  sacrifice  or  inconvenience 
suffered.  Consequently  the  stronger,  the  healthy,  and  those  most  accustomed  to 
hardships,  will  postpone  their  own  accommodation  for  less  augmentation  of  price 
than  others,  and  the  weak  and  suffering  will  be  housed  first,  as  they  ought  to  be 
morally,  and  at  the  cheapest  rate,  as  they  ought  to  be  economically.  A  false  principle 
always  puts  on  the  guise  of  a  true  principle.  Hence,  both  the  Value  Principle  and 
the  Cost  Principle  promise  the  same  thing,  and  will  begin  by  building  the  houses 
of  those  who  are  in  the  greatest  want  first;  but  the  Value  Principle  robs  the  weak 
for  whom  it  buUds,  during  the  process,  and  then  builds  more  magnificently  for  the 
strong,  making  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  of  the  weak  forever  after- 
ward. It  is  again  seen,  therefore,  that  the  Value,  or  Supply-and-Demand  Prmciple 
is  the  essential  element  of  the  civilized  cannibalism  which  now  prevails,  and  the 
Cost  Principle  the  essential  element  of  true  or  harmonic  relations  among  men. 

234.  There  is  still  another  ground  upon  which  a  defence  of  interest  is  set  up. 
It  is  said  that  trees  grow,  or,  in  other  words,  that  property  has  a  natural  tendency 
to  increase,  and  hence  that  a  smaller  amount  of  property  in  hand  now  is,  upon 
natural  principles,  worth  as  much  as  a  larger  amount  to  come  into  possession  one, 
two,  or  three  years  hence,  and  hence,  again,  that  I  ought  to  receive  more  in  pay- 
ment of  a  debt  which  is  postponed,  which  is  again  in  the  nature  of  interest. 

It  has  been  stated  that,  in  the  case  of  a  real  inconvenience  occasioned  by  a  delay, 
a  price  is  equitably  paid.  That  admission  does  not,  however,  affect  the  case  now 
put.  Cases  must  be  distinguished.  It  is  not  true  that  all  wealth  increases  natu- 
rally by  time.  Some  does  so,  while  other  kinds  deteriorate.  Let  us  apply  the  prin- 
ciple, however,  to  the  case  of  an  actual  increase.  It  is  a  consequence  of  the  Cost 
Principle  that  natural  wealth  bears  no  price;  consequently  the  increase  of  natural 
wealtli  bears  no  increased  price.  For  example :  if  cattle  increase  naturally  upon 
the  open  prairie,  and  no  human  labor  is  bestowed  upon  their  care,  they  are  the 
common  wealth  of  aU  mankind.    If  a  given  amount  of  labor  is  bestowed  upon  the 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  143 

care  of  a  di'ove  of  one  hundred,  that  amount  of  labor,  or  its  equivalent,  is  the 
legitimate  price  of  the  drove.  If,  then,  a  drove  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  can  be 
cared  for  just  as  well  by  the  same  labor,  the  legitimate  price  of  the  larger  drove 
will  be  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  the  smaller,  for  not  value  but  cost  is  the  limit 
of  price.  Hence,  under  the  (operation  of  the  Cost  Principle,  there  is  no  sacrifice  to  me 
in  postponing  the  receipt  of  property  due  me  on  the  ground  of  its  prospective 
natural  increase,  for,  if  there  is  no  human  labor  added  to  produce  the  increase,  the 
price  remains  the  same,  and  I  can  at  the  future  day  purchase  the  larger  quantity 
at  the  same  rate  as  I  should  now  give  for  the  smaller.  And  again,  if  human  labor 
contributes  to  the  increase,  then  it  is  not  natural  or  spontaneous  increase,  and  there 
will  be  an  augmentation  of  price;  but  in  that  case  the  augmentation  will  be  merely 
a  precise  equivalent  for  the  human  labor  so  bestowed,  so  that  it  becomes  entirely 
indifferent  with  me  whether  I  have  the  property  now  in  possession  and  bestow  up- 
on it  the  necessary  labor  myself,  or  whether  it  remains  in  the  possession  of  another, 
who  bestows  the  labor,  and  to  whom,  at  the  expiration  of  the  term,  I  give  merely 
an  equivalent, — that  is,  an  equal  amount  of  labor  in  some  other  form.  Hence, 
while  there  is,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Value  Principle,  which  now  governs  pro- 
perty relations,  an  apparent  sacrifice  from  the  postponement  of  payment  on  the 
ground  of  natural  increase,  there  is  no  ground  of  sacrifice,  and  consequently  no 
basis  for  interest,  under  the  Cost  Principle. 

235.  I  anticipate  an  objection  like  this.  What  is  said  here  of  natural  wealth 
supposes  an  abundance  of  that  species  of  wealth.  What  is  said  of  the  cattle  on 
the  prairie  may  be  all  right  if  there  are  enough  cattle  for  all.  But  so  soon  as  a 
scarcity  occurs,  will  any  one  who  has  possession  of  a  drove  divide  with  others  for 
a  due  proportion  of  the  labor  he  has  bestowed  upon  it? 

This  is  a  mere  question  as  to  what  men  will  do  under  the  pressure  of  temptation 
to  do  wrong.  It  is  clear  that  the  only  right  the  individual  has  to  the  drove  more 
than  others  results  from  the  labor  he  has  bestowed  upon  it.  That  makes  it  his 
property.  He  can  refuse  to  dispose  of  it  if  he  requires  it  for  his  own  use.  If  he 
does  dispose  of  it,  the  just  measure  of  price  is  the  amount  of  labor  bestowed.  As 
he  cannot  augment  that  price,  if  he  acts  justly,  by  retaining  it  while  pressed  by 
the  wants  of  others  to  dispose  of  it,  the  temptation  to  retain  more  than  he  requires 
for  his  own  wants  is  removed.  There  is  no  motive  left  to  act  against  his  human- 
ity, and,  as  humanity  is  an  element  in  the  nature  of  every  man,  it  will  of  course 
act  to  induce  him  to  dispose  of  what  he  can  spare. 

236.  Still  the  objection  is  not  fully  answered  without  this  additional  statement. 
It  is  easy  to  act  upon  the  true  principle,  —  that  is,  there  is  less  temptation  to  deviate 
from  it,  —  just  in  proportion  to  the  prevalence  of  general  abundance  and  the  com- 
plete adaptation  of  supply  to  demand;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  greater  pre- 
valence of  abundance  and  a  more  perfect  adaptation  of  supply  to  demand  grow 
directly  out  of  the  adoption  of  the  principle.     The  exercise  of  the  principle  will 


^ 


144  The  Science  of  Society. 

create  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  can  itself  live  with  a  more  and  more  perfect  life. 
A  false  principle  now  prevents  the  development  and  proper  distribution  of  wealth. 
It  is  uo  impeachment  of  the  true  principle  that,  under  the  pressure  of  want  created 
by  the  false  one,  there  is  a  strong  temptation  to  act  in  turn  upon  the  false  instead 
of  the  true  one. 

237.  It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  although  the  Cost  Principle  allows  sometimes  of 
an  augmentation  of  price  on  the  ground  of  a  delay  of  payment,  such  augmentation 
is  quite  different  from  interest  on  money,  as  now  understood.  It  is,  nevertheless, 
the  spice  of  truth  contained  in  the  proposition  that  delay  is  a  sacrifice  which  gives 
plausibility  to  this  argument  for  interest. 

238.  Interest  differs  from  any  such  augmentation  of  price,  1.  Because  it  re- 
lates to  the  value  or  benefi.t  of  the  accommodation  to  the  receiver,  and  not  to  the 
sacrifice  or  cost  to  the  grantor.  2.  Because  it  goes  by  rule,  and,  even  when  it 
professes  to  be  based  on  cost,  does  not  individualize  the  cases  of  real  sacrifice,  ap- 
parent sacrifice,  and  no  sacrifice.  3.  Because  it  claims  to  be  based,  in  part,  on  the 
natural  increase  of  wealth,  whereas  all  natural  wealth,  and  consequently  the  in- 
crease of  natural  wealth,  is  no  legitimate  basis  of  price  whatsoever. 

Every  one  must  admit  the  essential  justice  of  the  Cost  Principle  in  its  primary 
statement, — namely,  that  as  much  burden  as  you  take  for  my  sake  so  much  am  I 
bound  to  take  for  your  sake.  The  logical  consequences  of  that  admission  sweep 
all  interest  out  of  existence,  so  far  as  interest  is  an  admission  of  the  right  of  cap- 
ital to  accumulate  more  capital,  and  vindicate  the  claim  of  all  mankind  to  the 
equal  enjoyment  of  every  species  of  natural  wealth. 

239.  The  reader  must  disting-uish  well  between  capital  itself,  and  the  capacity  of 
capital  of  itself  to  make  additional  accumulations.  The  Cost  Principle  makes  no  at- 
tack upon  capital.  It  recognizes  capital  as  the  legitimate  accumulations  of  labor. 
It  simply  denies  that  capital  itself  has  any  legitimate  power,  when  not  used  by  the 
owner,  to  accumulate  more  capital  for  him.  But  what,  cries  the  fat  citizen  who 
lives  on  his  rents  and  whose  ideas  are  steeped  in  the  actual  routine  of  commerce, 
what  is  the  use  of  capital  which  produces  no  income?  It  is  of  use,  my  good  friend, 
simply  for  the  purpose  of  being  used.  It  is  of  use  in  the  same  manner,  and  for 
the  same  purpose,  as  honey  accumulated  in  the  hive  is  of  use  to  the  bees.  Honey 
is  made  for  the  purpose  of  being  consumed.  From  the  time  the  bees  cease  to  work, 
their  store  of  wealth,  ceasing  to  augment,  begins  to  decrease.  Xo  contrivance  has 
ever  been  hit  upon  among  them  by  which  the  honey  itself  should  go  on  making 
more  honey  after  the  bees  retired  from  business.  Hence,  among  bees,  the  rich  do 
not  become  richer,  nor  the  poor  poorer,  except  in  proportion  as  they  work  and  eat. 
Under  the  operation  of  the  true  principles  of  industry  and  commerce  the  same  will 
be  true  of  mankind.  Accumulations  of  wealth  will  be  an  object  of  ambition  then, 
as  now,  because,  so  long  as  they  last,  they  will  exempt  the  owner  from  toil,  if  he 
chooses  to  be  exempt.     The  man  who  has  wealth  will  be  in  the  condition  of  a  man 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  145 

who  has  done  his  work.  He  can  acquire  wealth  through  his  own  labor,  or  through 
donations,  bequests,  or  inheritance  from  friends.  His  capital  will  be  invested  in 
houses,  shops,  machinery,  improvements  upon  lands,  the  Labor  Notes  of  others,  in 
everything,  in  fact,  which  is  legitimately  property,  precisely  as  now ;  but  such  in- 
vestments will  bring  him  no  rents,  profits,  or  interest,  as  an  augmentation  of  his 
capital.  Whatever  he  withdraws,  converts  into  a  consumable  shape,  and  con- 
sumes, will  be  so  far  a  diminution  of  his  capital  stock,  as  it  will  be  obvious  to  every 
candid  mind  that  it  should. 

240.  Let  us  look  a  little  more  specifically  into  this  operation  of  the  principle, 
as  relates  to  the  rent  of  lands  and  houses,  the  use  of  machinery,  and  the  like.  We 
have  already  noticed  the  effect  as  relates  to  the  price  of  land  when  sold.  (82.) 
On  the  same  grounds  there  stated,  and  elsewhere  illustrated,  the  rent  of  lands  is 
nothing,  provided  they  are  maintained  in  as  good  a  condition,  in  all  respects,  as  that 
in  which  they  were  when  received  by  him  who  hires  them.  If  the  owner  main- 
tains them  in  that  condition,  manuring  them,  fencing  them,  etc.,  then  the  rent  is 
the  equivalent  of  the  cost  of  doing  so.  If  the  hirer  puts  the  lands  in  a  better  con- 
dition than  they  were  in  when  he  received  them,  the  price  is  due  from  the  owner 
and  renter  of  the  lands  to  him,  inverting  the  present  order  of  payment,  and  is 
measured  by  the  cost  of  such  augmentation  of  value.  So,  if  the  owner  sells  the 
lands,  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  price  is  the  cost  of  the  successive  augmenta- 
tions of  value  upon  the  soil  since  the  land  was  in  its  natural  state,  and  which  still 
remain  with  it.  Hence  it  follows  that  not  only  is  all  speculation  in  land  extin- 
guished, but  along  with  it  all  temptation  to  monopolize  the  soil.  There  is  no  ad- 
vantage in  owning  land  which  one  does  not  want  for  his  present  uses,  except 
this,  —  that  one  may  foresee  the  probability  of  his  requiring  a  particular  lot  for 
his  subsequent  private  occupation,  and  may,  for  that  reason,  desire  to  retain  the 
control  of  it,  or  rather  the  right  which  ownership  confers  to  resume  the  control  of 
it  at  a  future  time.  The  ownership  of  the  disposable  improvements  or  augmented 
value  upon  the  soil  may  also  be  as  convenient  an  investment  for  one's  surplus 
wealth  as  any  other,  since  that  can  at  any  time  be  converted,  by  sale,  into  consum- 
able property,  to  supply  his  wants.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  advantage  on 
the  part  of  him  who  cultivates  land  in  owning  the  land  over  hiring  it  of  another, 
except  in  the  permanency  of  his  tenure.  As  a  mere  tenant,  he  may  be  required  to 
remove  at  the  expiration  of  his  term  for  the  convenience  of  another,  but,  so  far  as 
the  profitableness  of  his  occupancy  is  concerned,  it  is  precisely  the  same  whether 
he  owns  or  hires. 

241.  As  relates  to  the  hiring  of  houses  and  structures  of  all  sorts,  the  operation 
of  the  principle  is  the  same.  The  rent  is  a  mere  equivalent  of  cost  to  the  wear 
and  tear  of  the  premises.  If  the  tenant  keeps  them  in  thorough  repair,  so  that 
there  is  no  depreciation  of  value,  the  rent  is  zero.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  dete- 
rioration is  suffered  to  go  on,  the  annual  amount  of  that  deterioration,  as  averaged 


146  The  Science  of  Society. 

upon  the  term  which  the  property  may  last,  is  the  annual  rent,  so  that  when  the 
property  is  worn  out  the  owner  will  have  received  a  full  equivalent  for  it,  and  have 
kept  his  capital  good  by  other  investments,  or,  have  consumed  it  in  supplying  his 
own  wants.  Suppose,  for  example,  a  house  upon  a  money  calculation  (all  such 
calculations  will  be  finally  resolved  into  hours  of  labor  or  pounds  of  corn)  costs 
ten  thousand  dollars,  and  is  estimated  to  be  capable  of  lasting  two  hundred  years ; 
the  annual  rent  of  it  will  then  be  fifty  dollars  per  annum.  The  owner  of  such  a 
building  will  then  have  an  annual  income  of  fifty  dollars  per  annum  in  addition  to 
his  earnings  from  his  own  labor,  which  he  will  consume  if  he  chooses,  and  at  the 
expiration  of  the  term  of  two  hundred  years  the  whole  will  be  exhausted.  If  he 
owns  such  a  property,  and  wishes  to  consume  it  more  rapidly,  he  can  sell  it  to  such 
persons  as  wish  to  preserve  their  capital,  and  use  up  the  proceeds.  It  follows  that 
the  more  permanent  the  structure  the  less  the  rent,  so  that  buildings  capable  of 
defying  the  inroads  of  time — stone  structures  and  the  like,  for  example  —  will 
command  no  rent  at  all.  Still  this  is  perfectly  harmonious,  since  such  edifices  are 
a  safe  means  of  investing  capital,  which  really  earns  nothing  let  it  be  invested 
where  it  may,  and  which  can  be  reconverted  at  any  time  into  consumable  property 
by  sale.  Where  capital  earns  nothing,  selling  is  just  as  advantageous  as  renting, 
since  renting  is  really  selling  piecemeal  instead  of  in  the  gross.  Hence,  under 
those  circumstances,  it  is  no  objection  to  the  purchaser  who  has  capital  to  invest 
that  the  stone  house  will  bring  no  rent. 

242.  But  it  may  be  objected  that,  if  persons  were  able  to  hire  stone  houses  free 
of  rent,  they  would  not  hire  others  of  a  more  perishable  material.  Clearly  not,  if 
there  were  enough  of  the  more  permanent  ones  to  supply  the  demand.  If  there 
were  nearly  enough,  the  less  permanent  and  consequently  more  expensive  ones 
would  be  less  rentable  and  less  saleable,  and  would  therefore  offer  a  less  secure  in- 
vestment for  the  capitalist.  Hence,  again,  the  tendency  of  this  operation  of  the 
principle  is  to  force  the  capitalist  to  build  indestructible  edifices,  and,  finally,  to 
house  the  whole  population  free  of  rent.  Is  that  consummation  to  be  deplored? 
But  at  that  point,  urges  the  objector,  houses  cease  to  be  saleable ;  hence  they  cease 
to  be  property  convertible  into  consumable  products,  and  there  will  no  longer  be 
any  motive  with  the  possessor  of  surplus  wealth  to  construct  houses  at  all.  Pre- 
cisely so.  But  that  point  is  just  the  point  at  which  all  the  houses  that  are  required 
by  the  whole  people  have  been  already  built.  Is  there  any  calamity  in  ceasing  to 
provide  a  supply  when  there  is  no  longer  any  demand?  It  will  be  high  time,  then, 
that  surplus  capital  shall  be  invested  in  other  provisions  for  human  wants,  in  loans 
to  genius  for  the  working  out  of  new  designs,  and  the  like.  There  need  be  no  fear, 
with  the  ever-rising  scale  of  luxury  and  refinement,  that  there  will  occur  any  gbit 
of  the  aggregate  demand  for  such  surplus  accumulations. 

243.  The  operation  of  the  principle  is  again  the  same  with  reference  to  machin- 
ery, and  hence  the  Cost  Principle  settles  triumphantly,  as  nothing  else  can,  this, 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Pi'ice,  147 

the  most  vexatious  question  pei'haps  of  moderu  economical  science.  The  machine 
earns  nothing.  The  capital  invested  in  it  is  merely  kept  good  for  the  owner. 
The  dividend  due  to  the  machine  is  solely  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  machine. 
Hence  machinery  ceases  to  work  against  the  laborer,  and  begins  to  work  exclu- 
sively for  him.  Every  member  of  community  comes  at  once  to  participate  equally 
in  all  the  advantages  of  every  labor-saving  process.  Wealth  has  no  longer  any 
monopoly  of  those  advantages.  Cost  being  the  limit  of  price,  the  price  of  every 
product  is  reduced  to  every  purchaser  by  just  so  much  as  the  cost  of  its  production 
is  diminished  by  the  aid  of  machinery'.  Hence  machinery,  like  competition,  now 
the  enemy  of  the  laborer,  will  be  converted  into  his  cooperating  servant  and  most 
efficient  benefactor.     (159,  163,  208.) 

2J:i.  I  must  not  omit,  before  closing  this  chapter,  to  notice  the  remaining 
ground  upon  which  the  habit  of  paying  intei'est  on  money,  and  consequently  rent 
on  capital,  now  rests,  and  along  with  it  the  power  of  capital  over  labor,  —  namely, 
the  scarcity  and  expensiveuess  of  the  circulating  medium  hitherto  in  use.  There 
is  not  enough  of  the  so-called  precious  metals  to  serve  the  purposes  of  commerce 
as  a  proper  medium  of  exchange,  their  intrinsic  value  and  insufficient  supply  mak- 
ing them  the  subjects  ol  monopoly  in  the  hands  of  the  money-dealers.  This  point 
has  been  already  adverted  to,  and  the  remedy  shown  to  be  the  substitution  of  the 
Labor  Note.     (77.) 

245.  It  will  be  appropriate  now  also  to  say  a  few  words  in  relation  to  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  individual  Labor  Note  to  expand  into  a  general  system  of  currency. 
As  that  capacity  depends  somewhat  upon  the  prevalence  of  confidence  consequent 
upon  a  general  habit  of  honesty  in  the  comnmnity,  it  could  not  be  so  favorably 
presented  until  the  power  of  the  Cost  Principle  in  operation,  to  engender  that 
habit,  had  been  previously  shown. 

246.  In  every  small  community  in  which  the  Labor  Note  is  used,  there  will  be 
very  soon  some  one  individual  whose  notes  will  come  more  into  use  than  those  of 
others,  —  the  storekeeper,  for  example,  in  the  village.  It  will  be  safe  for  him  to 
issue  Labor  Notes  to  any  extent  which  he  can  redeem  in  his  own  labor,  in  goods 
from  his  shelves,  or  in  the  Labor  Notes  of  others.  His  business  will  bring  him 
continually  into  possession  of  the  Labor  Notes  of  all  his  customers,  —  at  first  only 
in  payment  for  his  own  labor  in  serving  them,  —  the  cash  cost  of  the  goods  being 
paid  in  cash,  —  but,  finally,  with  the  extension  of  the  system  which  we  are  now 
supposing,  for  the  original  cost  of  the  goods  as  well.  Having  these  notes  in  pos- 
session, it  will  be  the  same  thing  whether  he  puts  them  in  circulation,  or  whether 
he  puts  his  own  notes  in  circulation  for  an  equal  amount  and  retains  those  of  his 
customers  as  the  means  of  redemption.  Convenience  will  be  in  favor  of  the  latter 
method,  so  far  as  it  shall  be  found  in  practice  to  be  safe ;  which  will  be  in  propor- 
tion to  the  growth  of  the  general  habit  of  honesty;  which  will  be  again  in  exact 
proportion  to  the  general  adoption  of  the  Cost  Principle  as  the  governing  prin- 


^ 


148  The  Science  of  Society. 

ciple  of  commerce.  Wherever  the  honesty  of  the  storekeeper  can  be  entirely  relied 
upon,  guarded  as  it  will  be  by  the  usage  of  keeping  his  books  entirely  open  at  all 
times  to  the  inspection  of  the  public,  the  practice  may  grow  up  of  each  inhabitant 
of  the  village  exchanging  Labor  Notes  with,  him  for  as  much  cm'rency  as  he  re- 
quires for  his  own  use,  and  issuing  the  notes  of  the  storekeeper  instead  of  his  own. 

_  In  this  manner  the  storekeeper  becomes  the  village  banker,  and  makes  out  and 
signs  all  the  currency  in  use  in  his  neighborhood,  and,  as  the  doing  so  becomes  a 
burden,  charges  the  cost  upon  every  issue.  By  this  means  the  detail  of  each  per- 
son's signing  and  issuing  his  own  notes  will  be  finally  avoided,  and  the  banking  of 
the  village  surrendered  into  the  hands  of  one  person.  Every  movement  should 
begin,  however,  for  safety,  in  general  individual  banking,  much  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  it  will  be  found  expedient  and  cheaper  in  practice,  in  the  early  stages  of  ex- 

^  periment  under  the  Cost  Principle,  to  go  back  to  the  manufacture  by  hand  of 
many  articles  which  are  manufactured  outside  by  the  aid  of  machinery,  and  in- 
trinsically, of  coui'se,  at  a  much  cheaper  rate. 

247.  The  system  of  banking  in  Labor  Notes  by  the  wholesale,  or  by  one  indi- 
vidual for  a  village,  neighborhood,  or  other  community,  thus  begun,  may  be  ex- 
tended to  the  larger  towns,  and  finally  to  the  cities.  In  the  large  towns  and  cities, 
instead  of  the  business  being  a  mere  appendage  to  the  store  or  post-office,  it  will 
become  an  independent  branch  of  business  by  itself, — the  banker  issuing  his  own 

~~'  notes  against  those  of  smaller  country  bankers  held  in  deposit,  as  theirs  in  turn 
are  issued  against  those  of  a  still  smaller  class  deposited  with  them,  and  these 
again  finally  against  the  primary  notes  of  the  citizens  generally.  The  notes  of  the 
metropolitan  bankers  will  then  become  a  national  currency,  issued  without  interest, 
to  the  whole  community,  and  at  no  expense  beyond  the  cost  of  the  mere  labor  in- 
volved in  each  exchange  or  issue. 

248.  It  is  obvious  that  such  a  system  of  banking  is  only  adapted  to  a  state  of 
society  in  which  there  is  a  high  state  of  confidence'  in  individual  good  faith.  It 
will  be  equally  obvious,  however,  to  every  reader  who  has  rightly  apprehended  the 
drift  of  this  treatise,  that  such  a  condition  of  society  will  be  the  legitimate  result 
of  the  application  of  right  principles.  It  will  be  alike  obvious  to  every  one  who 
reflects  that  no  true  order  of  society  can  exist — the  problem  to  be  worked  out  — 

/  while  bad  faith  and  general  dishonesty  remain.  The  system  of  currency  here 
slightly  developed  is  adapted  to  society  expurgated  of  those  elements.  Its  benefits 
are  immense.  The  fact  that  we  cannot  participate  in  them  now  may  serve  to  re- 
mind us  of  the  sacrifice  we  incur  by  adhering  to  principles  which  beget  mutual 
ovei-reaching  and  bad  faith  as  their  legitimate  progeny. 

249.  We  come,  finally,  to  the  consideration  of  the  much-abused  "  Wages  Sys- 
tem," to  escape  which  Social  Reformers  of  all  schools  have  proposed  rushing  into 

>     combinations  of  interest  of  some  sort,  to  the  destruction,  as  we  have  seen,  of  indi- 
"  vidual  sovereignty  and  freedom.     The  concrete  of  our  existing  labor  and  com- 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price.  149 

mercial  arrangements  is  felt  to  be  disharmonic  and  oppressive;  hence  every  feature 
of  it  is  liable  to  be  denounced  in  turn,  in  the  absence  of  correct  scientific  discrim- 
ination between  what  is  fundamentally  right  and  wrong  in  the  system.  It  is  in 
consequence  of  this  liability  that  Individuality  has  fallen  into  disrepute  among 
Reformers,  as  if  in  it  were  the  essential  element  of  discord,  whereas  it  has  been 
shown  that  Individuality  is  the  sole  basis  of  all  harmonic  adjustment.  In  like 
manner  the  relation  of  employer  and  employed  is  stigmatized  daily  as  vicious  in 
itself,  and  the  ideal  is  entertained  of  each  individual  being  so  employed  as  to  be 
his  own  "boss,"  to  use  the  language  of  the  trades,  and  to  work  solely  for  himself. 
No  such  arrangement  is  either  desirable  or  feasible.  It  is  not  all  men  who  are 
made  for  designers,  contrivei's,  and  directors.  That  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
exact  generalizations  of  mankind  into  classes  by  which  they  are  divided  into  Ori- 
ginators, Organizers,  and  Executors.  The  first  are  least  numerous,  the  second  more 
numerous,  and  the  last  most  numerous.  It  is  right  that  those  who  originate 
should  impress  themselves  on  the  execution  of  their  designs,  either  directly,  or 
through  the  intervention  of  the  organizing  class.  Naturally  each  is  content  with 
the  performance  of  his  own  function,  according  to  his  organization.  The  few  only 
wiU  desire  to  lead;  the  mass  of  mankind  will  prefer  to  follow,  so  soon  as  an  equal- 
ity of  rewards  renders  it  alike  honorable  either  to  follow  or  to  lead. 

250.  It  is,  then,  a  natural  relation  that  one  man  should  employ  another  to  aid 
him  in  actualizing  his  design;  that  he  who  has  a  design  to  execute  should  adjoin 
to  himself  the  labor  of  him  who  has  none,  or  no  other  one  than  that  of  securing 
the  means  of  his  own  subsistence  in  circumstances  of  personal  comfort.  For  that 
purpose  —  the  execution  of  the  design — they  two  enter  into  a  combination,  while 
in  interest  they  are  still  individual  and  distinct, — the  interest  of  one  being  in  his 
design,  and  that  of  the  other  in  the  wages  he  is  to  earn.  But  every  combined 
movement  demands  an  individual  lead.  Hence,  in  the  execution  of  the  design, 
the  one  must  guide  and  the  other  follow,  and  the  more  absolute  the  submission  of 
the  one  mind  to  the  other,  the  more  harmonious  the  movement.  Hence,  it  is  pro- 
per and  right  that  one  man  should  hire  another,  and,  if  he  hires  him,  it  is  proper 
and  right  that  he  should  remunerate  him  for  his  labor,  and  such  remuneration  is 
wages.  Hence,  it  follows  that  the  "Wages  System"  is  essentially  proper  and 
right.  It  is  right  that  one  man  employ  another,  it  is  right  that  he  pay  him  wages, 
and  it  is  right  that  he  direct  him  absolutely,  arbitrarily,  if  you  will,  in  the  perform- 
ance of  his  labor,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  business  of  him  who  is  em- 
ployed implicitly  to  obey,  —  that  is,  to  surrender  any  will  of  his  own  in  relation  to 
a  design  not  his  own,  and  to  conceive  and  execute  the  will  of  the  other. 

251.  The  wrong  of  our  existing  system  is  not,  then,  to  be  sought  in  Individual- 
ism, it  is  not  to  be  sought  in  the  want  of  Cooperation,  except  as  that  grows  to 
some  extent  out  of  the  want  of  Equity,  nor  is  it  to  be  sought  in  the  relation  of 
employer  and  employed.     It  is  right  that  the  great  manufacturer  should  plan,  and 


^ 


150  The  Science  of  Society. 

either  alone,  or  through  the  aid  of  assistants  under  his  direction,  organize  his 
mammoth  establishment.  It  is  right  that  he  should  employ  and  direct  his  hundred 
or  his  five  hundred  men.  It  is  not  true  that  those  men  do  not  even  now  cooperate 
with  each  other  and  vrith  him,  as  it  is  right  and  proper  that  they  should.  (52.) 
It  is  right  that  he  should  pay  them  wages  for  their  work.  It  is  not  in  any,  nor  in 
all  of  these  features  combined,  that  the  wrong  of  our  present  system  is  to  be  sought 
for  and  found.  It  is  in  the  simple  failure  to  do  Equity.  It  is  not  that  men  are  em- 
ployed and  paid,  but  that  they  are  not  paid  Justly,  and  that  no  measure  of  Justice 
or  Equity  has  ever  heretofore  been  known  among  men. 

2.32.  When  all  avenues  are  alike  open  to  you  and  me,  there  is  no  hardship  in 
the  fact  that  I,  having  no  genius  for  great  enterprises,  or  pi-eferring  to  avoid  the 
responsible  charge  of  them,  choose  freely  to  labor  under  your  direction  for  the  exe- 
cution of  your  designs.  It  is  a  great  hardship,  however,  if  I  am  first  forced  into 
that  position  by  a  system  of  labor  and  wealth  which  leaves  me  no  election,  and 
then  robbed,  by  the  operation  of  the  same  system,  of  one  half  or  two  thirds  of  my 
earnings,  for  your  benefit.  In  the  large  establishment,  such  as  we  are  now  con- 
templating, conducted  on  the  Cost  Principle,  the  proprietor  will  realize  no  more  in 
the  form  of  pecuniary  results  from  the  undertaking  than  the  humblest  laborer 
employed  by  him,  unless  he  works  harder,  and  not  so  much  if  he  does  not  work  so 
hard, — taking  into  account  all  the  elements  of  labor  or  repugnance,  both  physical 
and  mental. 

253.  But  who,  if  the  temptations  of  profit-making  were  removed,  would  assume 
the  responsibility  and  burden  of  devising,  organizing,  and  conducting  an  extensive 
and  complicated  business  concern  ?  The  question  is  thoughtlessly  asked,  and  dic- 
tated by  the  control  which  old  associations  have  over  the  mind.  In  the  first  place, 
the  burden  and  responsibility,  precisely  such  as  they  are,  more  or  less,  to  the 
individual  who  thus  assumes  a  leading  position,  as  compared  with  the  disagree- 
ableness  of  other  occupations  as  estimated  by  himself  solely,  are  the  limit  of  the 
reward  of  his  function.  The  greater  the  burden  the  greater  the  price.  The  Cost 
Principle  does  not  pronounce,  arbitrarily,  that  the  conductor  of  the  large  and  com- 
plicated business  shall  be  paid  a  very  low  price  for  his  labor.  It  merely  decides 
that  he  shall  be  paid  according  to  the  relative  degree  of  repugnance  of  that  kind  of 
occupation,) as  judged  of  by  himselfj — subject  to  no  other  checks  than  those  which 
are  supplied  by  his  own  conscience,  and  the  competition  of  others  who  may  deem 
it  less  repugnant  than  he.  Hence,  if  that  kind  of  occupation  actually  imposes  an 
intrinsic  burden  ten  times  or  one  hundred  times  as  great  as  mere  executive  labor, 
then  the  principle  accompanies  us  quite  out  to  that  point,  and  gives  to  him  who 
serves  in  that  capacity  ten  or  one  hundred  times  as  much  price  as  to  the  ordinary 
laborer.  The  principle  holds  good  wherever  it  conducts;  but  the  result  will  be, 
in  fact,  far  otherwise.  There  are  men  who  are  organized  for  the  lead  of  large  and 
complicated  enterprises,  to  whom  positions  demanding  great  powers  of  mental 


Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,  151 

combination,  and  devolving  heavy  responsibilities,  are  the  most  attractive.  By 
such,  such  positions  will  be  filled  at  a  pecuniary  price  less  rather  than  more  than 
will  be  awarded  to  labors  less  flattering  to  the  tastes  and  to  the  ambition  for  lead- 
ing and  responsible  posts. 

254.  There  is  a  class  of  Communist  Reformers  to  whom  this  whole  discussion 
relating  to  price  will  be  distasteful.  They  wish  to  be  rid  of  price  altogether. 
They  aspire  to  arrive,  by  a  short  cut,  at  a  condition  of  society  in  which  labor  shall 
be  solely  according  to  attractions,  and  supply  only  measured  by  the  wants  of  the 
individual.  That  ideal  has  in  it,  doubtless,  a  partial  prophecy  of  the  truth.  It  is, 
however,  like  the  point  of  no  friction  in  machinery,  —  a  point  always  to  be  aimed 
at,  and  continually  approximated,  but  never  absolutely  attained.  The  tendency 
to  a  modified  practical  communism  will  develop  itself  in  proportion  to  the  relaxa- 
tion of  the  hold  of  the  individual  upon  private  property  or  possession,  which  will 
be  again  in  proportion  to  the  prevalence  of  general  abundance.  The  effect  of  the 
Cost  Principle  will  be  to  augment  the  general  wealth  by  means  of  the  Economies, 
Attractive  Industry,  and  a  more  perfect  Cooperation;  hence  the  tendency  of  the 
Cost  Principle,  in  operation,  will  be  toward  the  extinguishment  of  all  price.  Price 
being  according  to  repugnance,  it  will  constantly  decrease  with  the  more  attractive 
conditions  of  industry  until,  if  the  point  be  ever  attained  at  which  all  labor  shall 
be  done  from  pure  attraction,  price  will  cease  altogether.  Hence,  in  so  far  as  the 
Communist  has  faith  in  the  possibility  of  attaining  the  conditions,  may  he  have 
faith  in  that  result.  The  Cost  Principle  begins  with  us,  then,  in  the  midst  of  re- 
pugnant labor  as  it  now  is,  and  does  Equity  there.  It  accompanies  us  with  the 
decrease  of  repugnance  and  renders  the  price  less,  and  finally  it  attends  us  quite 
out  to  the  ideal  point  of  pure  attraction  and  the  cessation  of  all  price.  It  is  the 
mistake  of  the  Communist  to  assume  that  the  goal  has  been  attained,  or  that  it  is 
possible  to  attain  it  by  any  sudden  leap,  avoiding  the  intermediate  steps. 

255.  Still  it  is  important  to  observe  that  the  absence  of  price  is  not  the  ab- 
sence of  ownership,  which  last  is  confusion.  Hence,  the  Cost  Principle  never  lands 
in  Communism  in  that  sense.  -  All  property  will  still  belong  to  individual  owners, 
who  will  exercise  absolute  rights  over  it — as  an  essential  condition  of  order^ 
even  though  a  price  be  not  demanded.  Take  an  illustration.  A  drink  of  water, 
a  pin,  or  a  wafer  is  not  now  ordinarily  a  subject  of  price,  as  articles  of  more  con- 
siderable value  will  not  be  with  greater  abundance,  and  still  they  belong  to  indi- 
vidual owners.  You  will  take  a  wafer  from  my  desk  without  even  consulting  me. 
It  is  not  worth  my  while  to  assert  my  ownership.  But  if  on  doing  so  repeatedly 
you  render  yourself  offensive  by  puffing  tobacco  smoke  in  my  face,  or  otherwise,  I 
fall  back  upon  my  right  of  property,  and  refuse  you  the  accommodation. 

256.  In  conclusion,  it  will  strike  the  judicious  reader  that  the  Cost  Principle 
is  wonderfully  searching,  subtle,  and  exact;  that  it  marks  the  line  with  pi-ecisiou 
between  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  in  the  present  system,  and  between 


152  The  Science  of  Society. 

"what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  in  all  the  proposed  systems  of  Social  Re- 
form; that  it  is  eclectic  and  discriminating;  that  it  combines,  in  fine,  the  sim- 
plicity of  fundamental  truth  in  its  primary  statement  with  that  minuteness  of 
application  to  the  most  ramified  details  which  entitle  it  to  the  appellation  of  a 
Universal  Principle. 


Thk  EifD. 


Appendix.  153 


APPENDIX. 


I. 

A  REVIEW. 


EQUITABLE  COMMERCE.     A  New  Development  of  Principlbs,  Proposed  as  Ele- 
ments OF  New  Society.    By  JosLiH  Warren.    12  mo.  pp.  117.    Fowlers  &  Wells.* 

This  is  a  new  and  enlarged  edition  of  the  original  work  on  Social  Science  which 
has  furnished  its  present  editor,  Mr.  S.  P.  Andrews,  with  the  basis  for  the  views 
which  he  has  set  forth  with  so  much  force  of  argument  and  felicity  of  illustration 
in  his  recent  publications,  entitled  "The  True  Constitution  of  Government"  and 
"Cost  the  Limit  of  Price."  Of  the  profound  importance  which  he  attaches  to  the 
alleged  discoveries  of  Mr.  Warren  no  one  can  doubt  after  reading  the  preface  to 
this  volume.  He  announces  it  as  "one  of  the  most  remarkable  ever  printed,  —  a 
condensed  presentation  of  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  Social  Science  ever 
yet  discovered."  He  does  not  "hesitate  to  affirm  that  there  is  more  scientific 
truth,  positively  new  to  the  world,  and  immensely  important  in  its  bearings  upon 
the  destiny  of  mankind,  contained  in  it  than  was  ever  before  consigned  to  the 
same  number  of  pages."  It  is  the  deep  conviction  of  the  truth  of  their  system 
which  is  cherished  both  by  Mr.  Warren  and  Mr.  Andrews,  we  are  willing  to  own, 
which  has  awakened  our  interest  in  the  subject,  rather  than  any  sympathy  with 
its  methods  or  any  faith  in  its  pretensions.  We  have  an  inborn  catholicity  of 
taste  for  everything  which  claims  to  be  a  scientific  improvement,  and  can  never  re- 
pudiate a  theory  which  challenges  our  acceptance  on  rational  grounds  without  first 
endeavoring  to  look  at  it  in  the  point  of  view  in  which  it  is  presented.  Indeed, 
we  hold  it  the  duty  of  every  free  mind  to  exercise  a  large  hospitality  to  novel  sys- 
tems, in  proportion  to  the  scorn  and  neglect  which  they  are  likely  to  experience  at 
the  hands  of  a  timid  and  unreasoning  conservatism.  In  the  present  case  we  can 
not  better  show  our  appreciation  of  the  ability  and  genuine  devotion  to  social  pi'o- 
gress  displayed  in  this  little  volume  than  by  the  perfect  frankness  with  which  we 
shall  criticise  its  claims. 

•This  review,  and  the  reply  from  Mr.  Andrews  which  follows  it,  appeared  originally  In  the  New 
York  "Tribune."  The  reriew  is  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  George  Ripley,  a  prominent  dis- 
ciple of  Foxirier  and  at  one  time  president  of  the  Brook  Farm  Association. 


154  Appendix. 

One  of  the  two  leading  principles  to  which  the  work  is  devoted  receives  our 
hearty  concurrence.  This  is  the  establishment  of  individual  sovereignty  as  the 
object  of  social  organization.  A  variety  of  forcible  considerations,  in  support  of 
the  position,  are  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Warren.  But  on  this  point  his  views 
cannot  pretend  to  novelty.  They  have,  perhaps,  never  been  more  admirably  stated 
than  by  Mr.  Andrews  in  his  treatise  on  "Government ";  but  they  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly pervade  the  writings  of  all  who  have  perceived  the  superiority  of  man  to  his 
accidents.  In  our  opinion  the  guarantee  of  individual  rights  is  the  paramount  ob- 
ject of  reform.  Our  zeal  for  the  masses  is  based  on  a  sense  of  the  individual  injus- 
tice which  arises  from  the  usurpation  of  privilege.  The  most  complete  development 
of  humanity  in  all  its  parts,  all  its  members,  all  its  fragments,  is  as  much  the  purpose 
of  a  true  social  order  as  the  most  perfect  action  of  the  productive  elements  of  the 
earth  and  atmosphere  is  the  aim  of  a  true  system  of  agriculture.  It  is  the  inspiration 
of  this  idea  which  has  prompted  the  efforts  of  every  wise  social  reformer,  and  most 
emphatically  of  Charles  Fourier,  the  most  philosophical,  the  most  profound,  and  the 
most  comprehensive  of  all  teachers  of  social  science  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
We  quarrel  with  the  present  order  of  society  because  it  enslaves  the  man  to  insti- 
tutions, subjects  the  masses  (the  aggregate  of  individuality)  to  oppressive  and 
crushing  influences,  keeps  the  noblest  elements  of  humanity  in  a  state  of  slumber 
or  paralysis,  leaves  no  scope  to  the  various  manifestations  of  genius,  reduces  the 
people  to  a  dead  level  of  custom  and  fashion,  and  absolutely  deprives  myriads  of 
the  living,  breathing,  aspiring  beings,  who  bear  the  impress  of  creative  Deity  on 
their  natures,  of  the  essential  conditions  of  physical  health,  spiritual  culture,  inte- 
rior harmony,  and  glorious  beatitude,  which  is  implied  in  the  Christian  verity 
that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God. 

The  development  and  sovereignty  of  the  individual  is  a  chimera  without  the 
possession  of  property.  The  universal  instinct  which  dreads  poverty  as  the  crown- 
ing terror  of  life  is  a  genuine  impulse  of  nature.  If  in  one  sense  it  is  true  that  the 
rich  man  cannot  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  it  is  equally  true  in  another  sense 
that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  cannot  enter  within  the  soul  of  the  poor  man.  He  is 
shut  out  from  the  command  of  himself,  which  is  the  essential  foundation  of  ce- 
lestial felicity.  He  cannot  do  what  he  will  with  his  own;  for  he  has  neither  choice 
nor  ownership.  He  is  under  bondage  to  the  external  world,  to  society,  to  his  own 
physical  wants.  His  very  selfhood  is  eaten  out  of  him  by  the  canker  of  sharp  ne- 
cessity and  inexorable  care.  He  has  no  guarantee  that  he  can  find  a  place  to  lay 
his  head,  for  houses  and  lands  are  monopolized.  He  may  be  in  want  of  food  to 
eat,  for  the  silver  and  gold  are  no  longer  the  Lord's,  nor  the  cattle  on  a  thousand 
hills,  but  have  become  the  prey  of  the  strong,  and  the  shrewd,  and  the  ungodly. 
Even  the  right  to  gain  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow  depends  on  the  con- 
venience of  capital,  which  may  be  the  least  in  need  of  his  work  when  he  most 
wants  something  to  eat.     Still  less  has  he  any  chance  of  attaining  the  spiritual 


Appendix.  165 

culture  and  harmony  which  are  the  birthright  of  man,  the  golden  fruitage  of  affec- 
tion and  hope,  the  enchantments  of  poetry,  the  charms  of  divine  philosophy,  the 
ample  revelations  of  science,  and  the  serene  grandeur  of  thought  and  feeling  in- 
spired by  the  consciousness  of  an  ever-present  God.  Alas  I  he  is  the  first  to  lose 
the  sentiment  of  humanity  amid  the  dismal  shades  of  ignorance  and  the  blind 
terrors  of  superstition. 

Hence  we  maintain  that  man  cannot  be  a  man  without  property.  He  cannot 
be  his  own  without  an  outward  owndom.  He  cannot  be  master  of  his  soul  without 
first  being  master  of  external  nature.  If  he  would  be  an  individual,  he  must  also 
be  a  proprietor.  In  fact,  this  is  involved  in  the  very  significance  of  the  terms.  If 
the  individual  is  divided  off  (^individualized),  he  must  possess  something  peculiar, 
proper  to  himself  (proprium,  property),  or  he  might  as  well  be  lost  in  the  mass. 

Socialism,  accordingly,  which  aims  to  make  all  society  a  body  of  proprietors,  — 
giving  each  man  the  ownership  of  everything  essential  to  his  development, — es- 
tablishes the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual. 

The  whole  course  of  political  progress  tends  to  the  same  result.  He  must  be 
stone-blind  who  does  not  see  that  the  revolutionary  spirit  of  the  age  is  a  struggle 
for  Individual  Sovereignty,  —  for  the  inauguration  of  man  in  the  power  and  glory 
of  universal  humanity.  This  tendency  is  apparent  from  the  progress  of  history, 
and  its  successive  gradations  may  be  easily  traced  to  their  first  principles  in  human 
nature. 

In  a  state  of  society  where  brute  force  and  cunning  are  the  prominent  features, 
monarchy  is  the  natural,  perhaps  the  inevitable  order.  The  sovereignty  of  one 
man  usurps  the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  The  will  of  the  masses,  and,  of  course, 
the  will  of  the  individuals  composing  the  masses,  is  lost  in  the  will  of  the  despot. 
The  sentiment  of  humanity  is  absorbed  in  the  possession  of  power.  A  step  in  ad- 
vance is  gained  by  the  development  of  aristocracy.  The  sovereignty  is  claimed  by 
a  privileged  few,  to  whom  the  masses  are  subservient  instead  of  to  the  monarchy. 
But  here  is  a  step  toward  the  diffusion  of  privilege.  The  one-man  power  has 
yielded  to  the  power  of  the  magnates.  Humanity,  however,  is  far  from  its  goal. 
The  will  of  "the  dear  God  who  loveth  all"  is  not  yet  accomplished.  Democracy 
must  be  established,  proclaiming  equality  against  privilege,  the  people  against  the 
aristocracy,  the  masses  against  classes,  man  against  men.  But  the  practical  work- 
ing of  democracy  effects  only  the  sovereignty  of  the  majority.  Taking  power  from 
the  few,  who  had  seized  it  from  the  monarch  (the  one-man  power),  it  gives  it  to 
the  many.  But  with  all  its  pretensions  democracy  does  not  emancipate  the 
masses.  The  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  has  not  yet  arrived,  because  the 
majority  to  a  great  extent  ignores  the  interests  of  the  minority,  and  the  majority 
of  today  may  become  the  minority  of  tomorrow.  Hence  democracy  does  not  gua- 
rantee the  rights  of  universal  humanity ;  hence  it  is  but  a  stepping-stone  to  better 
things  to  come;  and  hence  a  new  and  larger  development  in  the  cycle  of  the  ages 


156  Appendix. 

is  as  certain  as  that  man  has  been  made  partaker  of  an  infinite  nature.  The  last 
step  is  the  emancipation  of  humanity  by  inaugurating  the  Sovereignty  of  the  In- 
dividual. This  is  the  object  of  Socialism,  or  at  least  that  form  of  Socialism  which 
is  better  known  as  Association.  The  Socialist  or  Associative  idea  of  human  so- 
ciety is  not  monarchy,  the  sovereignty  of  one  man,  nor  aristocracy,  the  sovereignty 
of  a  privileged  class,  nor  democracy,  the  sovereignty  of  a  majority  for  the  time  be- 
ing, but  humanity,  or  the  integral  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual. 

This,  as  we  have  stated,  is  a  prominent  thesis  of  the  present  work.  But  it  is  not 
so  original  as  the  author  seems  to  suppose.  It  underlies,  more  or  less  definitely 
/^  expressed,  the  great  humanitary  movement,  the  instinct  of  which  gave  such  a  fer- 
vent inspiration  to  Rousseau,  which  found  a  devoted  apostle  in  Herder,  which 
softened  the  arid  formulas  of  Kant  and  Fichte  by  the  promise  of  a  glorious  future 
for  the  race,  which  has  blended  with  the  highest  philosophy  and  poetry  of  the  pre- 
sent age,  which  has  fired  the  master-spirits  of  the  world  with  quenchless  fervor, 
and  which,  in  another  form,  is  now  everywhere  at  work  in  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
and  with  "fear  of  change  perplexing  monarchs."  Among  social  reformers  by  pro- 
-  fession  St.  Simon  and  Fourier  regarded  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual  as  tlie 
ultimate  end  of  a  true  social  order.  Differing  from  each  other  and  from  the  au- 
thor of  this  volume  as  to  the  methods  of  its  attainment,  they  agree  in  the  su- 
premacy of  man  over  institutions  as  the  true  destiny  of  the  race.  The  same  idea 
has  been  elaborated,  we  need  not  say,  with  rare  force  of  logic  and  eloquence,  by 
our  friend  Henry  James ;  and,  though  less  directly  and  consciously,  is  the  dominant 
thought  in  the  most  valuable  writings  of  Dr.  Channing  and  Theodore  Parker. 
We  do  not  call  in  question  the  fact  that  Mr.  Warren  has  drawn  his  system  from 
his  own  mind.  In  that  sense  his  claim  to  originality  will  stand  good.  There  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  owes  it  to  foreign  suggestion.  But  he  exaggerates 
his  own  share  in  its  promulgation.  He  is  by  no  means  the  exclusive  herald  of  an 
idea  with  which  the  age  is  fermenting. 

We  have  said  that  the  possession  of  property  is  essential  ta  the  sovereignty  of 
the  individual.  In  this  statement  we  find  the  I'efutation  of  Mr.  Warren's  second 
principle,  that  "Cost  is  the  Limit  of  Price."  According  to  this  theory,  equal 
amounts  of  labor  are  made  to  balance  each  other,  without  regard  to  the  value  of 
the  product.  Equitable  Commerce,  it  maintains,  is  the  exchange  of  the  results  of 
equal  labor,  as  virtual  equivalents.  A  commodity  which  has  cost  you  the  labor  of 
an  hour  is  to  be  exchanged  on  equal  terms  for  one  that  has  cost  me  labor  to  the 
same  amount  of  time,  irrespective  of  the  utility  of  the  product  to  either  party. 

Now  we  utterly  fail  to  perceive  the  connection  of  this  principle,  with  that  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  individual.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  persuaded  that  they  are  in 
irreconcilable  antagonism. 

The  sovereignty  of  the  individual  is  secured  only  by  the  guarantee  of  individual 
property.     Universal  freedom  depends  on  universal  ownership.     But  the  right  of 


Appendix.  157 

property  is  based  on  the  right  of  the  individual  to  the  products  of  his  labor.  If 
there  is  au  intuitive  principle  in  the  science  of  society,  it  is  this.  Just  in  propor- 
tion as  this  natural  right  is  set  aside,  the  individual  loses  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant elements  of  sovereignty.  We  do  not  say  that  an  individual,  or  a  society  of 
individuals,  may  not  waive  their  exercise  of  this  right,  for  the  sake  of  another 
order  of  considerations.  For  instance,  I  yield  the  rigid  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple, in  behalf  of  social  charity.  I  assent  to  the  arrangement  by  which  a  portion 
of  the  products  of  my  labor  is  assigned  to  the  child,  the  sick,  the  mfirm,  the  aged ; 
but  this  is  a  voluntary  act  in  obedience  to  my  conviction,  that  the  strong  ought  to 
share  the  burden  of  the  weak.  It  is  not  enforced  by  the  law  of  natural  justice,  in 
the  distribution  of  products,  but  adopted  as  the  dictate  of  benevolent  sentiment. 
Or  I  may  belong  to  an  industrial  association,  consisting  of  various  branches  of 
industry,  and  organized  on  the  plan  of  dividing  the  aggregate  product  of  labor, 
according  to  the  amount  performed,  instead  of  allowing  each  individual  to  enjoy 
the  actual,  specific  product  of  his  labor.  But  this,  again,  is  a  voluntary  abdication 
of  a  natural  right  in  the  interests  of  social  unity.  It  is  prompted  by  the  sentiment 
of  friendship,  a  desire  for  an  equality  surpassing  that  of  nature,  or  by  other  mo- 
tives, no  matter  what.  No  one  can  pretend  that  it  is  the  result  of  a  scientific 
analysis  of  the  methods  of  industrial  repartition.  In  like  manner,  I  can  conceive 
of  a  society  founded  on  the  principle  of  "  Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,"  as  laid  down  in 
this  volume;  and  though  I  should  not  be  sanguine  of  its  success  in  producing 
integral  harmony,  it  might  be  attended  with  advantages  so  far  superior  to  the 
present  order,  as  to  justly  challenge  a  fair  trial  for  the  experiment.  But  this 
admission  does  not  countenance  the  scientific  accuracy  of  the  principle;  for  which 
we  find  no  valid  reason  set  forth  by  the  author,  and  which,  in  our  opinion,  is  at  war 
with  the  natural  right  of  the  individual  to  the  products  of  his  labor. 

It  follows  from  this  right  that  my  title  to  the  products  of  my  labor  is  good 
against  the  world.  No  man  gave  it  to  me,  and  no  man  can  take  it  from  me.  It 
is  not  the  result  of  any  legislation  of  monarch,  parliament,  or  congress,  not  deter- 
mined by  the  vote  of  any  majority,  but  the  enactment  of  the  supreme  and  divine 
law  inherent  in  the  organization  of  my  nature.  But  if  the  product  of  my  labor  is 
my  own,  no  one  can  decide  the  terms  on  which  I  shall  part  with  it  but  myself. 
The  right  of  exchanging  it  at  pleasure  is  involved  in  the  right  of  ownership.  The 
attempt  to  establish  a  compulsory  law  for  this  purpose  is  a  gross  violation  of  my 
acknowledged  sovereignty.  This  view,  we  think,  is  fatal  to  the  theory  in  question, 
apart  from  the  practical  inconveniences  that  would  arise  from  its  application. 

We  have  admitted  that  the  right  of  the  individual  to  the  products  of  his  labor 
may  be  set  aside  or  suspended  by  arrangements  to  which  he  gives  his  voluntary 
assent.  But  this  does  not  militate  with  the  scientific  validity  of  the  principle. 
In  Communism  —  of  which  Mr.  Warren's  system  is  one  form,  in  spite  of  its  pre- 
tensions to  exclusive  individualism — it  is  renounced  in  favor  of  equal  distribution, 


158  Appendix. 

for  the  sake  of  absolute  equality.  Integrating  the  society  as  one  man,  Commun- 
ism distributes  the  aggregate  products  to  the  aggregate  mass.  In  Association  — 
which,  be  it  well  understood,  is  heaven-wide  from  Communism — the  principle  is 
waived  in  favor  of  a  graduated  distribution  of  products,  for  the  sake  of  integral 
harmony,  proceeding  from  graduated  inequality.  In  the  system  of  Mr.  Warren, 
which  makes  "Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,"  the  principle  is  renounced  in  favor  of  an 
arbitrary  arrangement,  which,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  has  no  foundation  but  in  the 
fancy  of  its  inventor.  •  If,  in  one  hour,  A  produces  an  article  which  has  ten  times 
the  value  —  measured  by  its  adaptation  to  supply  human  wants  —  of  one  produced 
in  the  same  time  by  B,  the  parties  are  bound  to  exchange  them,  if  exchanged  at  all, 
on  perfectly  equal  terms.  The  absolute  ownership  of  the  article  is  thus  destroyed, 
by  an  arbitrary  restriction  on  the  process  of  exchange.  Could  there  be  a  more 
flagrant  violation  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual? 

Mr.  Warren  argues  that,  making  value  the  limit  of  price  is  identical  with  the 
maxim  of  trade,  that  a  thing  is  worth  what  it  will  bring,  and  that  hence  it  is  pro- 
ductive of  all  the  evils  due  to  the  "system  of  civilized  cannibalism  by  which  the 
masses  of  human  beings  are  mercilessly  ground  to  powder  for  the  accumulation  of 
the  wealth  of  the  few."  But  this  is  a  fallacy,  arising  from  losing  sight  of  the 
distinction  between  mercantile  value  and  absolute  value.  The  mercantile  value 
of  a  commodity  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  its  absolute  value.  The  former  is 
determined  by  several  external  elements;  the  latter,  by  intrinsic  qualities.  The 
mercantile  value,  or  the  market  price  of  an  article,  depends  on  the  law  of  demand 
and  supply,  on  the  prevalence  of  speculation,  on  the  plenty  or  scarcity  of  money, 
and  numerous  other  conditions  irrespective  of  its  absolute  value.  This  is  decided 
by  the  adaptation  of  the  article  to  the  satisfaction  of  human  wants.  Setting  aside 
the  mercantile  value,  then,  as  factitious,  we  contend  that  the  adjustment  of  price, 
according  to  absolute  value,  as  one  element  in  the  problem,  is  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  Individual  Sovereignty.  The  product  being  the  property  of  the 
producer,  and  its  value  dependent  on  its  intrinsic  qualities,  his  natural  right  is 
defeated  by  limiting  its  price  to  the  cost  of  production.  This  must  be  one  element, 
it  is  true;  but  another,  and  one  equally  essential,  is  its  absolute  value.  From 
these  elements  the  price  must  be  decided  by  the  agreement  of  the  parties.  A 
basket  of  strawberries  and  a  vase  of  flowers  may  be  produced  by  the  same  amount 
of  labor,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  exchangeable  values;  their  relation 
must  depend  on  the  tastes  of  the  parties  in  the  trade;  if  I  am  willing  to  give  three 
baskets  of  strawberries  for  a  vase  of  flowers,  or  three  hours  of  my  labor  for  one  of 
yours,  it  is  an  equitable  transaction,  and  no  arbitraiy  arrangement  can  prevent  it 
without  infringing  the  liberty  of  the  Individual. 

The  reverse  of  this  is  implied  in  Mr.  Warren's  system,  and  the  presence  of  this 
fallacy  vitiates  much  of  his  reasoning.  If  the  same  amount  of  labor,  in  different- 
cases,  does  not  produce  the  same  product,  it  follows  that  unequal  products  must 


Ajjpendix.  159 

be  exchanged  on  equal  terms.  At  first  blush  this  is  contrary  to  equity.  Nor  does 
Mr.  Warren  succeed  in  making  out  a  reconciliation.  He  says,  indeed,  that  the 
genius,  skill,  facility  of  execution,  or  what  not,  which  makes  the  labor  of  one  man 
more  productive  than  another,  is  a  natural  gift,  and  must  be  paid  like  all  the  gifts 
of  nature,  that  is  to  say,  not  paid  at  all.  But  this  is  begging  the  question.  Genius 
and  skill  are  no  less  indispensable  elements  of  production  than  muscular  force,  and 
no  scientific  reason,  as  far  as  we  know,  has  ever  been  alleged,  why  the  latter  should 
receive  renmneration  and  not  the  former.  If  the  agencies  of  production  are  to  be 
remunerated  at  all,  why  should  not  the  whole  of  them  be  remunerated?  On  what 
principle  is  the  selection  made  ?  Shall  the  brute  force  which  is  devoted  to  labor  be 
entitled  to  the  product,  while  the  skill  which  directs  and  utilizes  that  force  is 
deprived  of  its  share?  This,  it  seems  to  us,  so  far  from  sustaining  Individual 
Sovereignty,  tramples  it  under  foot.  The  Communists  say  that  the  products  of 
labor  shall  be  distributed,  not  according  to  the  amount  of  labor,  but  equally, 
irrespective  of  labor,  or  at  least,  if  a  difference  is  made,  it  shall  be  according  to 
the  wants  of  the  individual,  not  according  to  his  industry.  Very  well.  This  may 
be  benevolent,  but  it  is  not  scientific.  It  proceeds  from  the  law  of  friendship,  not 
from  that  of  distributive  justice.  Mr.  Warren,  while  claiming  to  sustain  indivi- 
duality, approaches  Communism,  which  is  the  grave  of  individuality.  The  Com- 
munists set  aside  all  the  elements  of  production  as  the  basis  of  remuneration. 
Mr.  AVarren  sets  aside  all  but  one  element,  and  yet  claims  to  be  at  the  antipodes 
of  Connnunism.  The  Communists  are  consistent  at  the  expense  of  individuality; 
Mr.  Warren  saves  individuality  at  the  expense  of  his  consistency. 

"So  much  of  your  labor  as  I  take,"  says  Mr.  Warren,  "so  much  of  my  labor 
must  I  give."  But  suppose  that  one  hour  of  your  labor  gives  a  pi'oduct  of  ten 
times  the  intrinsic  value  of  mine,  shall  I  pretend  that  an  hour  of  my  labor  is  an 
equivalent  for  an  hour  of  yours?  Who  is  to  reap  the  benefit  of  the  difference  in 
value  —  the  individual  producer,  or  the  great  body  of  producai's?  If  you  say  the 
individual  producer,  you  renounce  the  principle  that  cost  is  the  limit  of  price.  If 
you  say  the  great  body  of  producers,  you  take  the  ground  of  the  Communists. 
But  this  is  to  surrender  both  the  prmciple  of  individuality  and  that  of  the  scienti- 
fic distribution  of  products. 

"Every  individual  should  sustain  as  much  of  the  common  burden  aS  is  sustained 
by  anybody  on  his  account."  True;  but  how  is  the  share  of  the  burden  to  be  mea- 
sured? By  the  time  of  labor,  says  l\Ir.  W.,  including  its  difficulty  and  disagree- 
ableness.  By  the  useful  effect  of  labor,  says  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  except 
in  the  Communists,  who  sacrifice  distributive  justice  to  the  sentiment  of  friendship. 
Suppose  a  field  of  grain  is  to  be  harvested,  where  the  growth  is  uniform,  as  well  as 
the  facility  of  labor;  does  the  skilful  reaper  fail  to  sustain  his  share  of  the  labor, 
because  he  accomplishes  as  much  in  one  day  as  the  bungler  does  in  two?  If  he 
performs  an  equal  amount  of  work,  shall  he  not  take  his  own  time  for  its  perfor- 


160  Appendix. 

mauce?  On  Mr.  Warren's  theory,  the  skilful  reaper  and  the  bungler  must  work 
through  the  same  length  of  time,  without  regard  to  the  useful  effect  of  their  labor, 
in  order  equally  to  discharge  their  obligations  to  each  other.  But  this  is  sheer 
Communism,  since  it  deprives  the  individual  of  the  fruit  of  his  labor  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  mass. 

It  will  be  seen  that  we  regard  Mr.  Warren's  theory  of  "Equitable  Commerce" 
as  a  failure.  We  have  no  space  to  indicate  more  fully  the  objections  to  which  it 
is  liable.  Instead  of  making  "  Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,"  we  would  carry  into  effect 
the  great  natural  law  of  giving  the  producer  the  ownership  of  his  products.  The 
neglect  of  this  is  at  the  foundation  of  slavery,  pauperism,  crime,  and  the  myriads 
of  social  evils  which  the  philanthropist  deplores,  and  which  it  is  the  function  of 
social  science  to  remedy.  Let  the  products  of  labor,  in  all  cases,  be  guaranteed  to 
the  producer;  and  the  material  condition  of  individual  sovereignty  will  be  fulfilled. 
This  principle  should  be  made  the  basis  of  all  plans  for  social  reform;  and  when 
it  is  wisely  applied  we  shall  see  the  "new  Heaven  and  a  new  Earth,"  which  is  pro- 
mised by  the  divinest  instincts  of  man,  and  to  doubt  of  which  would  be  practical 
Atheism. 


Appendix,  161 


REPLY  TO  THE  TRIBUNE  BY  MR.  ANDREWS. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune: 

You  recently  bestowed  three  columns  and  a  half  upon  a  notice  of  "Equitable 
Commerce ;  a  New  Development  of  Principles  Proposed  as  Elements  of  New  So- 
ciety," by  Josiah  Warren,  with  an  incidental  notice  of  "  The  True  Constitution  of 
Government"  and  "Cost  the  Limit  of  Price"  —  works  upon  the  same  general  sub- 
ject—  "The  Science  of  Society"  —  by  myself.  The  criticism  may  be  regarded  as 
relating  to  the  circle  of  principles  advocated  by  Mr.  "Warren  and  myself  rather  than 
to  either  of  us  simply  as  writers,  and  hence  I  feel  authorized  to  step  aside  from 
usage  so  far  as  to  reply  to  the  criticism,  the  conclusion  arrived  at,  which  I  cannot 
but  think  an  unfortunate  one  for  you,  being  that  Mr.  Warren's  theory  of  "  Equitable 
Commerce"  is  a  failure. 

The  books  in  question  are  not  of  the  kind  that  can  be  profitably  reviewed  with- 
out being  attentively  read.  The  hurry  and  clatter  of  newspaper  machinery  are 
not,  I  am  aware,  favorable  to  the  weighty  consideration  of  those  profound  philo- 
sophical truths  which  lie  much  below  the  surface.  If  a  critic,  under  such  circum- 
stances, should  fail,  therefore,  fully  to  grasp  the  significance  of  a  cu'cle  of  principles 
so  revolutionary,  and  yet  so  simple,  so  perfectly  harmonious  in  their  relations  to 
each  other,  so  absolutely  indispensable  each  to  the  working  out  of  the  other,  and  so 
thoroughly  responsive  to  every  demand  of  exalted  human  aspiration  after  Social 
Order  and  Freedom  and  Harmony,  it  should  not  be  charged  on  him  as  a  defect  of 
acumen,  or  of  sympathetic  affinity  for  truth,  but  merely  to  the  want  of  opportunity. 

You  accept  and  adopt  the  first  of  this  circle  of  principles,  "  The  Sovereignty  of 
the  Individual,"  but  simply  put  in  a  caveat  against  the  claim  of  exclusive  original- 
ity on  the  part  of  Mr.  Warren.  This  question  of  originality  is  one  of  little  im- 
portance, and  one  to  which  no  man  would  attach  less  consequence  than  Mr. 
Warren  himself.  The  important  question  is,  "Is  it  trueV"  aud  on  this  we  agree. 
Nevertheless,  it  is,  after  all,  likewise  simply  true  that  Mr.  Warren  is  the  first  man 
in  the  world  clearly  to  define  this  idea  as  a  Principle,  instead  of  a  vague  aspiration, 
to  fix  it  in  a  Formula,  to  settle  its  Legitimate  Limitation,  to  propound  it  as  one  of 
the  Grand  Practical  Solutions  of  the  Social  Problem,  and  to  connect  it  with  its  Cor- 
related Principles  in  this  solution.  It  is  true  that  the  idea,  simply  as  such,  has 
"more  or  less  distinctly"  pervaded  the  writings  of  nearly  every  modern  reformer, 
that  it  swells  and  palpitates  in  every  aspiration  after  a  better  future,  and  inspires 


162  Appendix. 

even  the  blindest  exertion  after  human  emancipation.  It  is  true  that  it  is  impli- 
cated remotely  and  prophetically  in  Fourier's  formula  of  "  Destinies  proportioned 
to  Attractions,"  as  it  is  in  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence,  which  af- 
firms that  all  men  are  entitled  to  "Liberty  and  the  Pursuit  of  Happiness";  but  all 
this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  distinct  announcement  of  the  "  Sovereignty 
of  each  Individual  to  be  exercised  at  his  own  Cost,"  propounded  as  a  scientific 
substitute  for  all  Laws  and  Governments,  and  as  one  of  the  immediate  working 
instrumentalities  of  Social  Reform.  So  at  least  it  seems  to  me.  If  it  be  not  so, 
and  Social  Reformers  of  other  schools  accept  and  even  claim  the  priority  in  the  an- 
nouncement of  this  Principle,  as  we  accept  and  state  it,  why,  so  much  the  better; 
only  don't  let  them  get  frightened  when  they  discover  the  whole  meaning  of  all 
they  are  committed  to. 

But  in  the  next  place  you  come  upon  the  next  of  our  principles  in  the  circle, — 
namely,  that  "  Cost  is  the  Equitable  Limit  of  Price."  From  this  you  dissent,  on 
grounds  which  show  that  you  have  not  fully  grasped  the  idea  of  the  manner  in  which 
Principles  are  appropriately  put  forth  after  all  notion  of  authority  or  enforcement 
is  abandoned.    The  gist  of  your  objections  is  contained  in  the  following  statements : 

We  have  said  that  the  possession  of  property  is  essential  to  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Indivi- 
dual. In  this  statement  we  find  the  refutation  of  Mr.  Warren's  second  principle,  that  "  Cost 
is  the  Limit  of  Price."  According  to  this  theory,  equal  amounts  of  [equally  repugnant]  la- 
bor are  made  to  balance  each  other,  without  regard  to  the  value  of  the  product.  Equitable 
Commerce,  it  maintains,  is  the  exchange  of  the  results  of  equal  labor  as  virtual  equivalents. 
A  commodity  which  has  cost  you  the  labor  of  an  hour  is  to  be  exchanged  on  equal  terms  for 
one  that  has  cost  me  labor  to  the  same  amount  of  time,  irrespective  of  the  utility  of  the  pro- 
duct to  either  party. 

Again : 

Individual  property  is  based  on  the  right  of  the  Individual  to  the  products  of  his  own  la- 
bor. But  if  the  product  of  my  labor  is  my  own,  no  one  can  decide  the  terms  on  which  I 
shall  part  with  it  but  myself.  The  right  of  exchanging  it  at  pleasure  is  involved  in  the  right 
of  ownership.  The  attempt  to  establish  a  compulsory  law  for  this  purpose  is  a  gross  viola- 
tion of  my  acknowledged  Sovereignty.  This  view,  we  think,  is  fatal  to  the  theory  in  ques- 
tion, apart  from  the  practical  inconveniences  that  would  arise  from  its  application. 

This  indictment  seems  to  consist  of  three  counts,  stated  or  implied.  1.  That 
we  deny  that  the  Individual  is  entitled  to  the  product  of  his  own  labor.  2.  That 
we  repudiate,  in  some  sense  not  specified,  the  possession  of  property,  and  the  right 
of  exchanging  it  at  pleasure.  And  3.  That  we  attempt  to  establish  a  compulsory 
law  to  regulate  price  in  gross  violation  of  our  own  other  fundamental  principle, 
"  The  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual."  To  aU  of  these  counts  we  simply  plead  not 
guilty,  and  put  ourselves  upon  the  country.  Indeed,  we  are  utterly  unable  to  ac- 
count for  the  fact  that  any  man,  having  looked  into  our  books,  could  have  made 
them  otherwise  than  by  recurring  to  another  of  our  principles,  "  Infinite  Individu- 


Appendix.  163 

ality,"  which  embraces  and  accounts  for  every  conceivable  diversity  in  the  under- 
standing of  language. 

The  proposition  that  "  the  Individual  is  entitled  to  the  products  of  his  own  labor," 
cannot,  it  is  true,  be  accepted  without  limitation  and  modification.  If  I  have  em- 
ployed my  labor  in  hunting,  catching,  and  handcuffing  you,  and  reducing  you  to 
submission,  it-can  hardly  be  assumed  as  an  axiom  of  Social  Science  that  I  become 
entitled  to  the  ownership  of  you  thereby.  So,  if  I  employ  my  superior  wit,  or 
skill,  or  accumulative  labor,  which  is  power,  in  reducing  you  by  more  subtle  means 
to  a  condition  of  servitude,  the  axiom  in  question  cannot  be  adduced  in  justifica- 
tion. In  order  to  entitle  me  to  the  products  of  my  own  labor,  my  labor  must  have' 
been  justly  bestowed ;  that  is,  it  must  have  been  exerted  at  my  own  cost;  that  is  again, 
I  must  not  throw  the  burdensome  consequences  of  mjr  cond_uct_Qii  others.  Cost 
enters,  therefore,  in  the  final  analysis,  into  the  qiiestion  of  ownership.  But  let 
that  pass.  The  question  more  immediately  up  now  relates  to  the  exchange  of  pro-'' 
ducts  confessedly  belonging  to  the  parties.  We  admit,  under  the  modification  > 
stated,  that  every  man  is  entitled  to  the  product  of  his  own  labor.  Even  this  basis, 
chosen  by  our  critic,  excludes  natural  wealth,  including  uncultured  or  natural  skill, 
from  any  claim  for  remuneration,  and  carries  him  headlong  in  our  direction,  as  he 
will  find  when  he  has  leisure  to  follow  out  his  principle  into  its  logical  con- 
sequences. 

As  to  the  second  count,  that  we  repudiate  property  and  the  right  of  accumulat- 
ing and  exchanging  at  vsdll,  we  simply  deny.  We  only  repudiate  the  right  of  ac- 
cumulating other  people's  property ;  and  as  for  exchanges,  they  are  the  burden  of  our 
whole  doctrine. 

As  to  the  third,  the  attempt  to  establish  a  compulsory  law  to  regulate  price.  This 
you  regard  as  a  gross  violation  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual.  Verily,  so 
do  we;  and  if  we  attempted  anything  of  the  kind,  undoubtedly  "Equitable  Com- 
merce "  would  be  a  failure.  It  is  simply  for  the  reason  that  we  do  nothing  of  the 
sort  that  it  is  not  a  failure,  and  is  not,  saving  the  judgment  of  the  "Tribune,"  like 
to  be.  It  is  precisely  for  the  reason  that  we  hold  the  doctrine  of  the  Sovereignty 
of  the  Individual  that  we  are  forever  prohibited  from  establishing  not  only  this, 
but  any  other  compulsory  law.  But  this  does  not,  we  apprehend,  prohibit  us  from 
discovering,  accepting,  announcing,  and  acting  upon  Principles.  It  is  precisely 
this  difference  between  a  compulsory  law  and  a  Principle  which  our  critic  has  failed 
to  apprehend,  and  which  the  world  sadly  needs  to  appreciate.  It  is  this  misappre- 
hension which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  hasty  decision  he  has  rendered  upon  the 
System  of  Principles  brought  to  his  attention,  which  being  rectified,  the  decision 
itself  goes  to  the  ground  as  destitute  of  any  support  or  validity.  As  this  is  the 
hinge  of  the  whole  matter  at  issue,  therefore,  let  us  endeavor  to  make  it  a  little  clear. 

We  do  not  deny  your  right  to  tlie  product,  and  the  full  product  of  your  labor. 
We  allow  you  to  retain  the  possession  of  it  as  long  as  you  choose.     Nay,  further, 


164  Appendix. 

if  you  determine  to  dispose  of  it,  we  do  not  require  nor  insist  in  any  manner  upon 
your  disposing  of  it  otherwise  than  upon  any  terms  that  you  choose,  if  you  can 
find  a  purchaser.  We  do  not  oppose  a  feather's  weight  to  your  entire  freedom. 
We  commit  no  encroachment  upon  the  fullest  exercise  of  your  Individual  Sove- 
reignty. We  can  not  do  so  consistently  with  ourselves.  We  admit  your  full  title 
to  the  freedom,  first,  of  not  selling  at  all,  and  then  of  selling  for  any  price,  no 
matter  how  great  the  hardship  to  the  purchaser.  In  other  words,  you  are  entitled 
to  the  freedom  of  doing  right  or  wrong,  for  the  better  or  the  worse,  with  what  is 
clearly  your  own.  This  leaves  the  question,  however,  of  what  it  is  right  or  wrong 
for  you  to  do,  entirely  open  to  be  settled,  further  on,  by  other  principles  —  but  to 
be  settled  still  solely  hij  and  for  yourself  with  no  foreign  interference  whatsoever. 
Is  it  not  possible  that  being  thus  entirely  freed  from  compulsion,  and  thrown 
entirely  upon  yourself  for  a  decision,  you  may  wish  to  know/or  yourself  v^hich.  is 
the  right  and  which  the  wrong  principle  upon  which  to  carry  on  your  exchanges  — 
which  will  place  you  in  harmonious,  equitable,  and  the  most  truly  advantageous 
relations  with  your  fellow-men ;  which  will  bring  you  into  antagonism  with  all  the 
world,  confusion,  general  insecurity  of  condition,  and  prevalent  wretchedness. 
Will  the  man  who  shall  communicate  that  knowledge  to  you  thereby  commit  any 
breach  of  your  Individual  Sovereignty,  provided  he  "adapts  the  supply  to  the 
demand"?  If  you  are  desirous  of  knowing  the  laws  of  health, 'and  I  make  you 
aware  of  the  Principle  of  Physiology  which  demands  the  ventilation  of  houses,  is 
that  "a  gross  violation  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual"?  If  I  undertook  to 
compel  you  to  construct  your  habitation  upon  a  given  plan,  even  for  your  benefit, 
I  admit  that  it  would  be  so;  but,  is  simply  communicating  the  knowledge  to  such 
as  want  it  any  encroachn^ent?  If  a  dozen  individuals,  operated  upon  by  such 
knowledge,  voluntarily,  in  concert  or  separately,  enlarge  their  windows  or  other- 
wise modify  their  residences  to  insure  this  desirable  end,  is  there  any  sui-render. 
on  their  part  of  their  Individual  Sovereignty?  Yet  to  assert  this  would  be  pre- 
cisely equivalent  to  the  fault  found  with  our  circle  of  Principles,  by  the  "Tribune." 
It  does  not  follow,  because  I  have  the  right,  and  every  other  man  has  the  right 
to  the  products  of  his  labor  and  to  the  liberty  of  retaining  them  forever  in  his  own 
hands,  that  it  is,  therefore,  either  right  or  best  that  all  men  should  retain  all  their 
own  products,  and  that  there  should  be  no  commerce  whatsoever.  Neither  does  it 
follow,  because  any  man  has  the  right  to  the  freedom  to  sell  his  products  in  any 
manner  that  he  pleases,  that  it  is,  therefore,  either  right  or  best  that  he  should  sell 
them  upon  the  very  worst  principle  that  can  be  conceived  of.  It  can  not  be  rightly 
said  that  any  man  has  a  right  to  do  wrong;  but  every  man  has  the  right  to  the  freedom 
to  do  lorong.  In  other  words,  he  has  the  right  not  to  be  interfered  with  in  the  exer- 
cise of  his  own  judgment  of  right,  although  it  may  lead  him  to  do  what  all  the 
world  pronounce  wi'ong,  provided  only  that  he  acts  at  his  own  cost,  that  is,  that  he 
do  not  throw  the  burdensome  consequences  of  his  acts  on  others. 


Appendix.  165 

Ilaviug  thus  completely  disposed  of  the  chai'ge  that  the  "Cost  Principle"  is  per 
se  an  infraction  of  the  other  Principle  —  "The  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual"  — 
the  question  returns,  what  is  the  rir^ht  Principle  to  regulate  the  exchange  of  pro- 
ducts between  man  and  man?  I  ask  this  question,  not  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing 
that  Principle  compulsorily  upon  you,  but  for  the  purpose  of  satisfying  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  atti'ibutes  of  my  nature.  You  ask  it,  if  at  all,  in  the  same  man- 
ner, for  yourself.  In  reply,  we  have  placed  before  i;s  two  different  Principles; 
one,  that  of  the  exchange  of  equivalent  Values  or  Benefits;  the  other,  that  of  the 
exchange  of  equivalent  Costs  or  Burdens.  One  is  the  Value  Principle,  the  other  is 
the  Cost  Principle.  The  one  now  prevails  in  the  world,  the  other  we  contend  for 
— not,  be  it  remenibered,  to  enforce  it  upon  any  body,  but  as  the  true  or  right 
thing.  I  have  found  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  fourteen  pages  absolutely 
requisite  to  set  forth,  in  the  most  condensed  manner,  the  parallel  between  the  two. 
I  can  not  repeat  (in  a  newspaper  article)  what  I  have  thus  said.  I  can  not  con- 
ceive how,  having  read  the  book,  you  could  simply  repeat  the  old  theory,  the 
wrong,  the  outrage,  the  civilized  cannibalism  of  which  are  too  patent  to  be  either 
disguised  or  palliated.  It  is  equally  inconceivable  how,  having  read  the  book,  you 
could  reject  the  simplicity,  the  obvious  truth,  and  the  high  harmonic  results  of  the 
Cost  Principle.  We  may,  perhaps,  seek  for  the  solution  in  the  radical  misconcep- 
tion into  which  you  had  been  betrayed  by  haste,  and  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
rectify. 

Not  having  time  or  space  here,  then,  to  expound  or  defend  the  Cost  Principle, 
permit  me  to  conclude,  dogmatically  and  prophetically,  by  affirming  somewhat  in 
relation  thereto.  It  is  nothing  less  than  the  grand  reformatory  idea  in  commerce,  i 
corresponding  to  the  Protestant  idea  in  the  religious  world,  and  to  the  idea  of  Self- 
Government  in  the  political ;  and  inasmuch  as  "  Commerce  is  King,"  pre-eminently 
so,  in  this  age,  it  is  the  Grand  Idea  of  the  Age.  It  is  now  in  its  infancy.  Many 
a  man  who  will  cast  his  eye  over  this  discussion  will  hardly  know  what  the  words 
mean.  "Cost  the  Limit  of  Price,"  will  be  to  him  a  jargon  of  terras.  Neverthe- 
less in  those  words  is  contained  the  Most  Fundamental,  the  Most  Potent,  and  the 
Most  Revolutionary  Idea  of  the  nineteenth  century;  a  watchword  of  Reform 
which  comes  not  humbly,  saying,  "By  your  leave,"  but  with  power,  saying  to  the 
capitalist,  "You  must."  By  means  of  it,  the  rendering  of  justice  to  labor  is  no 
longer  to  be  a  matter  of  Grace,  but  of  Necessity.  It  is  an  idea,  too,  which  is  to 
permeate  the  public  mind  without  bluster,  without  agitation.  Already  the  organi- 
zation of  Equity  Villages  is  going  on  with  a  quietness  which  leaves  them  to  be 
sought  for  by  those  who  have  a  demand  for  truer  relations  among  men,  and  with 
a  real  success  which  will  dispense  with  all  criticism  at  an  early  day.  The  time  is 
not  distant  when  the  fact  that  a  leading  Social  reformer  and  reviewer  pronounced 
the  Cost  Principle  a  failure,  will  be  quoted  among  the  Curiosities  of  Literature. 


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